Starfleet Cadets
by Filip Janik
Summary: My original fanfiction series about the young cadets of Starfleet Academy.
1. 1x01 Practical

Episode 1x01 - Practical

Matthew shifted around in the cockpit of his P-51, looking from side to side, but there was no sign of the fighter he had seen only moments before.

He felt his headband succumb to the pressure of the air and fly off his head. His shoulder length black hair was now flaying in the wind. His palms were sweating profusely and barely held on to the controls.

Suddenly a shadow passed over Matthew and he immediately responded. He pulled the fighter around and fired. His whole plane shook as the recoil from the dual machine guns ripped through the hull like a chainsaw. The Japanese fighter exploded in the distance, but Matt had enough trouble of his own. The port engine gave a deep sigh, as if protesting one last time and gave way.

Matthew flicked a switch and heard a buzz in his left ear.

'Sergeant Matthew Meyers to Command One, Can you hear me?'

His earpiece buzzed again.

'Command One, please respond.'

No answer.

'Command One, I have to attempt an emergency landing, are the runways clear?'

Finally, Matt heard a click and the hoarse voice of his commander rang through.

'Runways clear Matt, you're free to go.'

'Thank you sir,' Matthew responded, just as his plane gave a violent jerk. He quickly scanned the control panel and his eyes widened when a red diode next to the starboard engine schematic flashed.

'Sir, my port engine is fried, and the starboard will soon follow. I'm going to have to try and glide in.'

'Alright Matt,' the commander replied nervously, 'good luck.'

Matthew peered out of the cockpit and spotted the runway in the distance. He gave a quick look at the altimeter and a shudder ran down his back. It didn't take more than years of flight experience and a simple trigonometric calculation to find out that, at the rate he was falling, he would never make the runway in time.

He remembered the grass field he had passed over as he was taking off a couple of hours earlier and with a mighty jerk, turned his plane ever so slightly in its direction.

Matt readied himself as his windshield became a sea of green. A second before impact, he pulled the rudder up and flicked on the flaps. He could feel the momentum push him deep into his seat as the fighter leveled with the ground and the wheels hit the ground.

He bit his lip and urged them to hold on. The plane was slowing down, but the landing gear was becoming more and more unstable. One hundred, eighty, sixty… Bang! The plane dipped to one side as one of the wheels gave way. The other collapsed immediately and Matt found himself gliding along the grassy field.

Finally the plane stopped and Matt clambered out. He heard sirens as the emergency teams from the military airport arrived. The ambulance stopped just on the edge of the runway, that was about fifty meters away.

'Almost,' Matt smiled to himself.

He turned and smiled again, scratching another line onto the right side of his trusted fighter. There were thirty seven of them now. She was in a ghastly state, but the mechanics would patch her up, they always did.

The commander was coming out to greet him.

'Well done!' he exclaimed. 'Another job well done.'

Suddenly, Matthew heard a soft ringing sound coming from somewhere in the distance. He gave a loud sigh and rolled his eyes.

'Time's up, I guess,' he muttered.

'Excuse me?' the commander asked, puzzled.

'Computer, save progress and end program.' Matthew said dejectedly.

The hangar around him disappeared immediately only to be replaced by a metallic room with a distinct green grid. He walked over to the door and it opened automatically.

He was greeted by a soft voice that notified him that he had already used up all of this month's holo-suite credits. And it was only the first weekend of the month…

He walked down the corridor to the nearest turbolift, but before he could press the button, he heard a familiar voice call his name.

A bear-like arm grabbed him from behind and in one swift move, Matthew was sprawled across the floor.

'Oh, come on,' Matthew grunted, but his assailant had already extended his hand and pulled him up.

'Always get you,' he said with content and soon the two best friends were laughing.

'What's so funny?' another voice interjected. 'I hope it's not me.'

'Its not you Al,' Matthew smiled, turning to the short-haired girl that had just arrived. 'Guy stuff,' he added, as if that explained everything.

'Oh,' she replied. There was a slight note of disappointment in her voice that neither of the two noticed. 'Steve?'

'Let it go Alex,' Steve answered in his usual, serene voice. If it weren't for the fact that he was a security cadet and tussled with Matt whenever they met, one would think he was a pacifist, who avoided conflict at all costs. 'So, where we headin'?' he asked in his usual, straight forward to-the-point manner.

'I thought I would go down to the replimat and grab something to eat,' and as if on call, Matthew's stomach rumbled.

Steven laughed and Alex added, 'You're always hungry after you've been in the holo-suite. What do you do in there?' It was obvious that she had asked him this question many times before and wasn't surprised when he just waved her away.

'Wouldn't _you_ wanna know,' he smiled innocently.

'Oh come on, you know its not… THAT,' he added when he saw the surprise on his best friend's face. 'Besides, it's not allowed.'

'It better not be,' she smirked. 'You're spending way too much time in there.'

'Oh no, not that again,' he said. 'Isn't it enough that I hear it from all of my teachers, now I have to listen to it from my friends as well…'

'Sorry,' Alex looked down. 'I didn't…'

'It's ok,' Matthew comforted her. 'I know you didn't mean it that way. I'm just tired of being lectured about my holo-suite habits.'

'So, we goin' to the replimat or not?' Steven said, steering the conversation away from that dangerous subject.

'Yeah,' Matthew and Alex said together.

* * *

_Starfleet academy, the largest non-commercial complex on Earth and only the second man-made object that can be seen from orbit, is considered by many to be the greatest achievement of mankind. It produces countless talents each year to join the best of the best in the United Federation of Planets: Starfleet._

_With the recent threats of the Borg and Dominion, and the weakened state of the Federation, that need for excellence has become ever more dire. It will be up to the next generation to protect Earth, to protect the paradise that humanity has had over five millennia to perfect.

* * *

_

He sat in his seat, looking up at the black screen. He heard a soft beep as the hour turned twelve and a dark shadowy figure appeared on the screen. To the untrained eye, it would seem that the screen was blank, but the figure moved slightly and an almost inaudible electronic voice spoke.

'All is in place, we will be awaiting the delivery of the…' the voice paused, 'merchandise,' and the man nodded in understanding, 'at the planned location. There can be no mistakes.'

He nodded again and the figure vanished.

'There can be no mistakes…' it hung in the air as the man surveyed the plans for the last time. The Starfleet Academy Campus was divided into two wings, North and South.

The North Wing contained the student accommodations, dining halls, recreational areas and everything else one would expect to see in an average sized town, all displayed on the holo-map in full 3-D. Only this wasn't a town, but one single giant complex with its own independent tram and transporter network.

The South Wing contained the university itself, training grounds, simulation chambers, landing pads and officer quarters. With two hundred floors and a diameter of over three kilometers, it cast a shadow even on the magnificent complex of Starfleet Command, situated only a few kilometers away.

The man zoomed in on one particular coordinate in the South Wing and, seeing a couple men preparing a small vessel, smiled to himself. Everything was going as planned.

* * *

'I'll have a rootbeer,' Matthew said to the bartender.

'We don't serve rootbeer to students,' it sounded more like an automated response coming from a replimat than a bartender.

'Oh yeah,' Matthew said in mock-surprise, 'Forgot.' He winked back at Alex.

'Cut the cheek,' the bartender barked, 'order or leave,' but before Matt could open his mouth he added, 'order something normal, or leave.'

'Two tarkalian teas and a ractagino.' Matthew resigned.

When they were finally sat down he looked over his shoulder at the bartender.

'These bartenders, no sense of humor at all.'

Steven and Alex laughed.

'You'd think that after almost two years he'd realize that it's just a joke,' he shrugged. 'Ah well…'

'So,' Steve said in-between sips, 'how'd your preliminary go?'

'I dunno,' Matthew replied unenthusiastically, 'you know what I think of exams.'

'_It's not the real thing_,' the other two said in unison, laughing.

'Well,' Matthew frowned at them, 'it isn't!'

The two looked at each other in a way that made it clear this was something they heard many times before.

'I understand the need for exams for technical positions like engineering or science, but do you _really_ need to sit a four hour paper on all the rules and regulations of Starfleet Command, or write a fifty page paper for Commander Nielsen on 'the effects of stress and fatigue on command decisions'?'

Steve motioned to speak, but stopped immediately and Matthew continued.

'I mean, really. What's useless lecturing compared to actual experience?'

'Matthew…' Steve's eyes widened.

'C'mon, haven't you ever felt that one hour in a real combat situation…' Matthew stopped suddenly, 'he's standing right behind me, isn't he?'

* * *

Steve sipped his ractagino as Matthew droned on about his usual 'practical vs. theoretical' learning philosophy. It was always the same thing. Matthew did have a lot of good points, but just as much as Matthew hated talking about holo-suites, Steve just wasn't in the mood of discussing studies in his limited free time.

He was about to try and redirect the conversation from that psychology lector Matthew always complained about when said person approached from behind Matthew.

Matthew continued to speak and Steve exchanged looks with Alex. There was a worried expression on her face. Matthew finally seemed to notice that something was wrong.

'He's standing right behind me, isn't he?' Matthew looked over his shoulder and sunk into his seat.

Steve had a very strong urge to laugh, but in the spirit of friendship, sat silently and waited as Nielsen began to speak.

'I'm glad to see you enjoy my assignments so much,' the tall blond man said with a smug look on his face. 'You just failed your psychological evaluation.'

Steve saw that sentence blow the wind out of his best friend. He opened his mouth to speak, but Alex had beaten him to it.

'What psychological evaluation?' she asked defensively, 'and for what, bruising your ego?'

* * *

Alex watched in shock as Matthew complained about the teacher that was standing right behind him.

'Shut up! Turn around!' she wanted to shout out, but Matthew kept on going. She threw a quick look at Steve, who seemed to be enjoying himself rather than worried. Finally, Matthew seemed to realize what was going on, but it was too late, Commander Nielsen had clearly heard everything.

He started talking about some failed psychological evaluation and he was taunting Matt. He was taunting him. Alex found herself responding harshly. She had let her emotions slip and immediately realized it.

'Miss Hudson, unless you want to join Mr Meyers here, please remain silent.'

Alex mumbled something inaudible and gave Matthew a resigned look.

'Right, Mr Jacobs, Miss Hudson, your first field exam will happen later today. Report to Docking bay 3 at twenty-two hundred hours for your briefing. Matthew,' he smiled evilly, 'confined to quarters.' He then turned away and, with a definite bounce in his step, strode out of the cafeteria.

'That was so unfair,' Alex said quickly, and when Steve sat in silence, nudged him hard with her elbow.

'Um, oh yeah…' Steve mumbled. 'Sorry man, if I knew he was gonna do _that_ I'd have told you…'

'Yeah, I know,' Matthew said dejectedly. 'I'm just as surprised. I mean, I know I complain about him a lot, but he's normally a nice guy. Dunno what got into him…'

* * *

Matthew sat on his bed, looking through old books describing the Battle for Britain during the Second World War, but even that wasn't enough to calm him down. This wasn't right, he didn't do anything all that bad and while he was going to be stuck here for the next couple of hours, his classmates were going on their first field mission.

Steve had called in and told him that they were to take a small resource freighter, dock with the Moon Orbital Station, pick up the cargo of simple metals, orbit around the Moon and return home.

It wasn't anything all too difficult or exciting, but after spending almost two years in the academy in lecture halls and holo-suite simulators, he was really looking forward to an opportunity such as this.

Steve also mentioned that there would only be a single Starfleet officer along, which would have meant that, were he onboard, Matthew would have taken the role of First Officer.

'Computer. Time?' he muttered.

'Twenty-two hundred hours, thirty-six seconds.'

Matthew looked sadly out of his window in the direction of Docking Bay 3. His view was blocked by the large statue of Zefram Cochrane that stood right in the center between the North and South Wings, but he was sure that somewhere behind it, his friends and classmates were just taking off.

Why did Nielsen overreact so much? What was his problem, really? He didn't know why, but something told him that something was wrong. Well, at least that everything definitely wasn't alright in this scenario. That's it. He would just have to go and ask him. Go and ask Nielsen.

He walked over to the console in the corner of his room and pressed on the Starfleet icon in the top corner.

'Computer. Locate Commander Nielsen.'

'Unauthorized access, level one security clearance required,' replied the feminine voice of the Starfleet Academy computer.

Matthew snorted and leaned against the console with his head in resignation. Computers, unless they were the consoles on the bridge of a starship or the command console of a shuttle or fighter, were never his thing.

'If I could only remember how to do that "loop-thing" Alex told me about,' Matthew thought, feeling slightly annoyed with himself for forgetting something as useful as bypassing a level one security lock.

'I guess I'll have to venture a guess,' he thought. 'Computer. Locate Commander Nielsen's quarters,' he said, this time out loud.

'Commander Nielsen's quarters are located in South Wing, East Block, Officer Quarters B-13.'

'B-13?' Matthew thought, 'that's almost on the other side of the Academy, I hope he's there…'

He picked up his corridor pass, but then remembered that it was revoked for the night. He threw it back on his bed and left his dorm, hoping he wouldn't be caught.

* * *

He hadn't even reached the turbolift that would take him to the SA-Tram, when a young and beautiful woman with two discs on her collar stopped him.

'Yes, Lieutenant?' Matthew asked innocently. 'Do you need anything?' he added in a slightly flirtatious tone.

'Why are you wandering the corridors after curfew?' she asked coldly, completely nonplussed by the tone of his voice.

'Umm,' Matthew muttered, 'I…'

'These young Starfleet officers,' he thought, 'so career-oriented, so cold…'

'I was…' he tried again, but no good excuse came to mind. Why was it that what seemed to work so well on most girls, always fell short of Starfleet officers?

'Show me your corridor pass, Cadet,' she said even more coldly.

That was the end of his plan. He was going to have to return to his dorm and that nagging feeling that something wasn't right would have to wait.

'That's ok, Lieutenant,' an unfamiliar voice said from nearby. 'I asked Matthew for help with this console. I'm supposed to get it done by tomorrow evening, but I thought I'd do it overnight so I could go to my classes.'

For the first time, the woman smiled.

'Alright, Ryan. Don't stay up too late though.'

* * *

'How do you know my name?' Matthew asked as the two walked towards the turbolift.

'I noticed that someone was trying to enter the security lock in these dorms, then figured that it was probably the person that was out during curfew without his pass.'

'What about the console?' Matthew asked.

'Oh, I finished that hours ago,' he ran a hand through his hair nervously and only then did Matthew notice that his savior had prosthetic hands. But when he was about to comment on it, he noticed that not only his hands, but also his feet were toned differently than the rest of his skin.

The cadet, who seemed to be about the same age as Matthew, appeared to notice the prolonged looks and smiled nervously.

'It's a long story,' he said simply, and Matthew didn't ask any more, he simply extended his hand.

'I'm Matthew,' he smiled. 'But you already know that.'

'Ryan,' he returned the smile.

* * *

'So, what were you trying to get out of the computer?' Ryan asked as they took the turbolift to the tram.

'The location of one of my professors,' Matthew explained, 'I need to ask him something.'

'I take it its pretty urgent,' Ryan added and started fidgeting with the turbolift console.

'Yeah,' Matthew muttered and began to explain what had happened.

'Try it now,' Ryan said as Matthew concluded his explanation.

'Try what?' he asked confusedly.

'The override,' Ryan told him, checking his watch to see if they had enough time before they reached the tram.

'Oh. Computer. Locate Commander Nielsen.'

The console buzzed for a fraction of a second, then answered: 'Commander Nielsen is not in the Academy.'

The two looked at each other in confusion.

'Computer?' said Ryan this time, 'Is there a log of Commander Nielsen's departure from the Academy?'

The computer buzzed again, this time for about two or three seconds.

'Commander Nielsen left Starfleet Academy from Docking Bay 3 on cargo freighter Ontario at exactly twenty-two hundred hours.'

Ryan looked even more confused, but there was comprehension on Matthew's face.

'Nielsen was the sole Starfleet Officer on the field mission, so why didn't he want me along?'

'Couldn't he just hold a grudge against you?' Ryan asked, but even before he had said it, he knew that didn't make sense.

'He's a Starfleet Officer,' Matthew rationalized. Starfleet Officers just weren't that way, were they?

'You said he was acting weird though, didn't you? He couldn't possibly be a…'

'No…' Matthew interjected. 'A changeling wouldn't have made such a stupid mistake.'

The turbolift door opened and two girls in civilian clothes came in. Matthew gave Ryan a look and he immediately caught on.

'Heys,' Matthew smiled at the girls. 'You ladies up for a little thrill?' One of the girls giggled and hid her face in her long blonde hair, while the brunette whispered something in her ear.

Meanwhile, Ryan returned the lid on the console. Matthew noticed that the mechanic was slightly flustered by being in a turbolift with two good-looking girls and was starting to turn slightly pink around the cheeks.

'C'mon man,' Matthew whispered to him, 'these two chicks are our ticket to Nielsen's quarters.'

Ryan didn't seem too thrilled by the prospect, but Matthew just turned his back on him as he tried to protest.

'It'll do him some good,' he thought evilly.

'Well, we're heading for a restricted area,' Matthew said in a sly tone, 'and we need you two to get in. You up for it?'

The blonde giggled again, but the other nodded.

* * *

They took the tram two stations to the East Block and got off. Matthew hadn't been in this section of the Academy yet, but had a vague idea of how to get to B-13, the only obstacle would be the Level 3 security checkpoint at the entrance.

'Now girls,' Matthew explained, while Ryan looked anywhere but at the girls, 'we need you to go along and ask someone for directions. It doesn't matter what you ask for, just make sure they come through the checkpoint.' He pointed out the small doorway that somewhat resembled an enlarged version of those antiquated x-ray screening devices. 'Ryan here will take care of the rest,' and he clapped the man in question on the back.

'Would you stop doing that?' Ryan muttered so only Matthew could hear it.

'Alright, alright,' just make sure you keep that checkpoint open.

* * *

'Ok, ladies, just a second,' Matthew winked at them. 'We have something to do in here.'

Unsurprisingly, the blonde giggled.

'Will you stop that already?' the other girl said a little louder than she intended. 'Can't we come inside?' she added in a whisper.

'Ry?' Matthew looked over.

'As if it depends on me,' he said from the console. 'Here we go.'

The door opened.

* * *

Alex looked out of the viewscreen as the Moon Orbital Station disappeared behind the Moon. It was a spectacular sight. To finally see everything from the seat of the Conn Officer was like seeing space for the first time. It had always been her dream to serve on a starship and even though this was a small mining cruiser and an exam, it was a wonderful feeling.

A wonderful feeling marred only by the fact that Matthew couldn't be there to see it. And why, why was that idiot Nielsen captaining them on this mission?

'He isn't even in Command,' she thought, 'why'd they give a Psych lector Conn for our first mission when there are so many experienced captains to learn from on hand.'

'There's been a change in plan,' Nielsen brought Alex out of her reverie. 'We aren't returning to Starfleet Academy, but taking this freighter to Ceres in the asteroid belt.'

Alex threw a puzzled look at Steve, who stood by the door to the bridge in his Security Officer uniform.

'Sir, our orders were to orbit…' the First Officer, a broad-shouldered African American, began, but to everybody's shock Commander Nielsen drew his phaser and shot him directly in the chest.

One of the bridge officers screamed and Steve charged towards Nielsen, but the man wheeled around on him, pointing towards his heart.

'It was on stun,' he said menacingly, 'the next one won't be.'

The entire bridge was motionless except for a slowly retreating Steve.

'Now, you will do everything that I say.'

* * *

'Oh my God,' Matthew exclaimed, looking over the datapad he found under a loose board. 'He's going to take over the freighter.'

The blonde girl let out a high-pitched yelp but the other covered her mouth.

'Shut up, Irene,' she said with a definite note of fear in her voice.

'Girls, we're going to go tell someone, just stay here and keep an eye on the datapad,' Matthew said in what Alex always called his 'command-voice' and threw the pad on the bed.

'Matthew!' Ryan shouted. 'The datapad… it's erased itself. You must have triggered some sort of security device.'

'Get out!' Matthew commanded, 'Now.'

They all sped out the door just as it shut and sealed itself. The two girls ran down the corridor, but there was no time to follow them. Matthew and Ryan went directly to Ops.

* * *

'Let me get this straight,' Admiral Andrews, head of Starfleet Academy said in his usual calm, but emotionless voice. 'You want me to believe that one of the longest-serving professors in this establishment has kidnapped a group of our students on their field mission, with no evidence whatsoever?'

'There was a datapad,' Matthew implored.

'I take it by the past tense that you don't have it anymore.'

'Right, it got erased,' Matthew hastened. 'Please sir, you have to believe us.'

It was hard to say 'us' when Ryan hadn't even spoken a word yet. He just stood next to Matthew and stared at the floor.

'Look,' Andrews said in what Matthew understood to be a 'this is final' tone. 'I'm willing to overlook the fact that you were out when you were confined to quarters, bypassed level one and level three security checkpoints and broke into a senior officer's quarters, but I wont allow for accusations of this kind in a Starfleet institution. Now return to your quarters.' It was clear that the matter wasn't open for discussion, so Matthew turned around and left.

'You could have supported me you know,' he said to Ryan when they were out. 'Or do you also think that I made up the whole thing out of spite for Commander Nielsen?'

Ryan didn't answer, but Matthew knew what was going on in his mind.

'Look, I know you didn't see the pad, but it was there…. I saw it,' he needed someone to believe him. 'I'm NOT making this up.'

Ryan opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

'Whatever,' Matthew said angrily. 'I'm going after them, whether you help me or not,' and he turned around to leave.

'Wait. I believe you,' he paused. 'It's just… I'm afraid of flying.'

'What?' Matthew turned around, but the look on Ryan's face didn't lie.

'You can't understand…' Ryan began but Matthew stopped him.

'I think I'm starting to,' he said softly and motioned with his eyes towards Ryan's prosthetics.

Ryan gave him a sad look that confirmed everything.

'You don't really have to come along, but I need you to help me get a shuttle.'

* * *

'Communications,' Admiral Andrews commanded, 'Get me the freighter Ontario.'

'Yes sir,' the Communications Officer responded. 'On screen.'

'Admiral Andrews, what a pleasant surprise,' Nielsen smiled out of the viewscreen. 'is there anything wrong?'

'Just a routine check,' the Admiral responded.

* * *

Alex exchanged quick looks with Steve but it was clear that he, like her, also had no idea how to get out of the situation. She could possibly short-circuit one of the bridge computers, but could she hit him? And more importantly, would it even be enough to knock him out. What if he started shooting?

She heard a beep on the console next to hers and the girl sitting in front of it gave her a worried look. They were being hailed and it was clear that the girl was afraid of whether she should tell Nielsen or sit silently as commanded.

'Captain?' Alex said in as much a neutral voice as she could muster.

'I said….' He began, but then he noticed the hail. 'In my office.'

* * *

The dark figure surveyed Nielsen from the viewscreen and he could almost feel it scanning him. It didn't say anything.

'I've done what you wanted,' Nielsen said, in a scared voice. 'Now I want my payment.'

'Fifty bars of Gold-pressed Latinum will be waiting for you upon delivery,' replied an electronic voice.

'Sir, we are receiving another hail,' Alex called from the bridge.

Nielsen looked at the viewscreen one final time and returned to the bridge.

'It's Starfleet, sir,' Alex said, putting emphasis on the last word.

'On screen,' he commanded. 'If anyone even tries to warn them, I'll start shooting.'

* * *

Matthew looked over to the other side of the cargo bay, where Ryan was giving him a big 'thumbs-up'. He pressed his hand on the scanner next to the hatch and it buzzed similarly to the way it did when they had bypassed the level one security clearance. The door opened and Matthew waved a 'good-bye' to Ryan, but smiled when the shy mechanic ran over and slid through it after him.

They climbed into the shuttle and Matthew immediately sat in the command seat.

'Do you know anything about flying?' he asked.

'Sorry,' Ryan bit his lip.

'That's ok,' he said encouragingly, 'just sit over there and enjoy the ride.'

'And close my eyes,' Ryan muttered.

'Or that,' Matthew laughed a bit. 'Releasing docking clamps.'

They felt a soft click and then the computer said, 'Docking clamps released.'

'Aft landing thrusters, on.' Matthew continued. 'Computer. Prepare to fire impulse engines as soon as we take off, accelerate to full impulse speed as quickly as possible.'

The computer beeped a confirmation and Matthew looked over to Ryan for the last time. 'Hang on.'

The shuttle shook slightly, but then rose into the air in one fluid motion. As soon as it was airborne it began accelerating incredibly and were it not for the gravity control, the two cadets would have faced 'G's of lethal strength.'

The computer in front of Matthew shone as he received a hail from Starfleet. He cut the communications immediately and went to red alert.

'Shields up,' he said quickly, 'prepare starboard thrusters for a full strength burst.'

There was a moment of silence as they waited for the tractor beam that would inevitably come. The sensors flicked as a power surge ran through the main complex and Matthew confirmed the order. Just as the tractor beam extended, the shuttle shot to the left, evading it only by centimeters.

'As soon as we clear orbit, plot a course for the freighter Ontario,' Matthew sank back into the seat, while something that sounded awfully similar to someone throwing up came from the back.

* * *

'We lost them sir,' the Operations Officer said, looking down at his console.

'Dammit,' the Admiral hit one of his hand-rests.

'There are currently no starship in the system that can intercept. Should we notify Starfleet Command?'

The Admiral didn't respond.

'Sir?'

'That shuttle is unarmed and it's not getting away at Impulse speeds. Something isn't right on that freighter. I could see it on the faces of the Cadets. That wasn't fear of their first mission, or of bad performance.'

'What do you suggest, Admiral?'

'Call in the nearest starship. Notify them of the situation. Make sure they are out of scanner range in case the Ontario's crew is indeed held hostage. If it tries to leave the system, intercept and follow standard Starfleet hostage situation protocols. If the boy is merely causing trouble, we will soon know and will send them new orders. Meanwhile, keep a careful watch on the situation.'

* * *

'We'll be there soon,' Matthew told Ryan.

'Computer, calculate hull integrity of freighter type KO-110 and compare with Type 9 Federation shuttle.'

'Freighter integrity is 2.37 of Type 9 shuttle.'

'Computer, calculate hull integrity of KO-110 freighter's weakest area of ten meters squared and compare with Type 9 shuttle.'

'Weakest point at coordinates 12.3.112 is 0.79 of Type 9 shuttle.'

'Divert all available power and backup life systems to forward shields.'

* * *

Commander Nielsen was getting nervous. Steve could see it in the way he kept changing targets with his phaser. If only he stood a little bit closer, he could tackle him.

'So much for the beauty of the practical,' Steve remembered Matthew's speech, 'at least simulators can't fly you away…'

He heard another familiar beep, but this time it wasn't the communications panel.

'What is it?' Nielsen barked.

'A Federation shuttle is approaching us at full impulse, sir,' the Cadet serving as Tactical Officer replied.

'Hail the shuttle,' Nielsen commanded.

'The shuttle isn't responding to our hails.'

'Dammit,' Nielsen cursed.

'Should I send out a warning signal?' Alex asked, manning both the Conn and Ops Stations, while the other girl stood next to her nervously.

'You'll do no such thing!' he shouted. 'Starfleet would catch that signal as well. Prepare to fire phasers at the shuttle.'

'What?' Alex exclaimed.

Nielsen shot around and pointed his phaser at her. 'And if you miss…' he paused, 'I wont.'

* * *

'They're targeting their phasers on us,' Matthew said in an automated manner he had picked up in months of simulators.

'We're in phaser range, brace for impact.'

The shuttle shook and a terminal on Matthew's left exploded. He moved his arm quickly, but not fast enough as the discharge burned the outside of his hand.'

'Shields at eleven percent,' the computer said as calmly as if it were announcing the cantina menu for the day.

Alter course to twelve mark three mark one-hundred and eleven. Now.'

The shuttle jerked to the right. 'On screen.'

The last thing Matthew saw before he passed out was the nearing cargo bay of the freighter.

* * *

'We got it,' the Tactical and Weapons officers said in unison. 'Still coming.'

'Fire again!' Nielsen screamed.

'Can't, the phaser capacitor has short-circuited. This freighter wasn't designed for combat sir.'

'It's heading straight for us.' Alex was now standing right next to Nielsen, phaser or no phaser.

'Wh…. I….' Nielsen stuttered.

'Brace for impact,' Alex commanded.

The bridge shook only slightly as the small shuttle collided with the underside of freighter.

'Status report,' Alex took the initiative.

'We have a hull breach in the docking bay, warp stability is normal,' came over the intercom from Engineering. 'Plasma fields are in place.'

'Back to your stations,' Nielsen snapped. 'Turn on the intercom.'

* * *

Ryan was sitting quietly next to his mother on the bridge of the USS Wyoming. He had begged her to let him come for weeks, and now he got his chance. Suddenly the bridge turned red and his mother got to her feet.

She was shouting something he didn't understand.

'Mommy,' he cried. 'What's wrong?'

He looked up to the viewscreen and saw a giant rock before being flung forward and slamming into one of the consoles. A large slab of metal was falling on top of him and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them he was looking along the floor of the bridge at the limp from of his mother.

'Mommy,' he screamed. 'Mommy.'

He tried to get up, but nothing happened. He tried to move his hands and push the object that was lying across him, still nothing.

A light flashed and Ryan looked across the floor at a similarly limp Matthew.

'No, not again,' the horrible memory was pushed out of his mind as he forced one of his prosthetic limbs to hoist him to his feet. There were flames all around him and the whole forward section of the shuttle was destroyed.

He supported Matthew from under his armpits and drew the phaser Matthew had handed him earlier. He fired at the debris ahead and the remains of the shuttle's front glowed red before passing out of phase.

He pulled Matthew out of the shuttle and into the cargo bay.

'Wake up, Matthew, wake up,' flashes of similar memories screamed at Ryan and he fell to his knees. 'No, not again, no… please.'

Matthew coughed and rolled over. 'We did it,' he smiled weakl, but before Ryan could join the intercom sounded.

'Crew of the shuttle. If you can hear this message, I order you to lay down whatever weapons you may have and surrender to the bridge.'

'Nielsen…' Matthew muttered.

'If you do not surrender in five minutes, I will start shooting the hostages.'

* * *

'Scan the cargo bay for survivors,' Nielsen ordered, but his voice shook in fear now. It was clear that he hadn't planned things to go this way.

'Two survivors, Starfleet Cadets.'

'What?' Nielsen wheeled around. 'ID?'

'Meyers, Matthew and Moore, Ryan.'

Alex stared at Steve in shock, but what surprised them the most was the shock on Nielsen's face.

'Matthew Meyers, are you sure?' his voice was weak and pained.

'Positive.'

'Are the escape pods functional?' he asked.

'This freighter doesn't have any escape pods, sir. It is an old model.'

'No way to get him off,' Nielsen whispered just barely audibly.

Alex looked confusedly at Steve again.

'Turn on the intercom,' he snapped.

'Intercom on.'

'Matthew? I'm coming down to the cargo bay, don't do anything stupid.'

'You,' he pointed at Steve, 'come with me.'

* * *

Matt stood in the center of the cargo bay, trying hard to stay still and stop himself from pacing. He knew he'd probably start shaking, but had to control himself. He couldn't show any sign of nervousness or Nielsen might suspect what they had planned for him.

The turbolift door opened and Matt's stomach made a flip when he saw Steve exit it with Nielsen standing behind him with a phaser.

'Why is he here?' he asked in as much a neutral tone as he could muster.

'To make sure you don't do anything stupid.'

'I just flew a shuttle at full speed right into a cargo freighter. As far as stupid goes, I'd say I…' but Nielsen interrupted him.

'Cut the cheek Matt. We've got to discuss your options.'

'I'm not going anywhere without my friends,' Matt snapped.

'Don't do this Matt,' tried the commander, but there was a definite pleading tone in his voice.

Matthew noticed that Ryan had already sneaked up behind Nielsen and was about to fire, but then the man turned slightly and Matthew panicked for the first time.

'Stop calling me Matt, like you know me. I know you're not Professor Nielsen.'

'You need to get off this ship Matt,' Nielsen implored.

'Look, just stop,' Matthew shouted, 'What is this all about? Why our class, why me?'

Nielsen was about to answer when Ryan fired. The man was still holding the phaser but for some reason he didn't fire. He slowly sank to his knees. 'I'm sorry,' he muttered.

'What?' Matthew looked at him confused.

'I didn't want you to be involved,' he said even more quietly.

'What are you taking about?' Matthew leaned closer to him.

'I had my orders, I tried…. I really tried,' he coughed and slipped further down.

'What's this got to do with me?'

'Nothing… your father…' he could barely form the words.

'WHAT!?' Matthew shouted. 'What do you know of my father? Why did you do all of this?'

'I was just supposed to deliver… didn't want to hurt anyone.'

'What do you think they would have done with them when you handed them over?'

'No… not…' he took a final labored breath, mumbled, 'metal,' and collapsed.

* * *

Steven jumped sideways when he heard the phaser blast, but when he looked around, Nielsen was still aiming his phaser at him. He could fire, but didn't. Why?

He started saying something to Matt, he couldn't hear what but it was clearly upsetting his best friend.

'WHAT!?' he heard Matt shout. 'What do you know of my father? Why did you do all of this?' but the man just muttered a few more words and fell, clearly dead.

All of the tension that had built up in him during the flight relaxed as he realized the danger was over, but a strange new knot had formed. What was going on with Matthew's father?

He had hardly ever heard his best friend talk of his parents and while he knew his mother had died shortly after Matt was born, he knew almost nothing about Matt's father.

* * *

Everyone clapped as Matthew, Steven and Ryan came to the bridge, Ryan disappearing again through the door with the words 'I'll be in engineering,' and a nervous smile.

'He's a little shy,' Matthew said to Steven and they both laughed.

Alex ran up and the three best friends all hugged each other.

'Captain?' Steve smiled at Matthew.

He only looked surprised for a fraction of a second, 'Stations,' he said in his ringing command voice.

He walked over to the center of the bridge and sat down in the Captain's seat and even though Nielsen's hints about his father troubled him, a smile covered his face. He was in command of a real ship for the first time.

'Helm. Set course for Starfleet Academy. Warp One'

'Course laid in,' came from his left as Alex gave him a wink.

'Energize.'


	2. 1x02 Something Trivial

Episode 1x02 – Something Trivial

'Why do you bother with that book?' Matthew said as he looked over his best friend's shoulder and read 'I have a dream', written in large block letters. 'Why would anyone want to read a three hundred year old book full of essays about racism?'

'Why not?' Steve replied dismissively and continued reading. 'Besides, it's for class.'

'Don't you find it hard to believe that humans today would oppress others because of something as trivial as pigmentation?'

'Racism isn't only about skin colour, you know,' said Alex from behind her copy.

'Am I the only one that thinks we are way beyond racism today?' Matthew frowned. 'Ok, people may have been prejudiced that way in the past, but what's the point of reading a book about it now? Isn't equality the entire point of the Federation?'

Alex dropped the pad on Matthew's bunk and stretched her hands above her head, as if preparing for a mighty feat.

'The Federation isn't a utopia Matt,' she started pacing around the room, 'we may have moved beyond racism here on Earth, but you can't expect to serve here, can you?' She stopped pacing and smirked, 'and besides, just remember the years of conflict with the Vulcans.'

'That wasn't racism,' Matthew interjected. 'They were holding us back…' but before he even finished the sentence, he knew it was ridiculous.

'And those pointy ears and arched brows had absolutely nothing to do with it…' Alex laughed. 'Not to mention suppressed emotions and superior intellect, physical ability and everything else? What a mouthful…'

'Ok, ok, I give up.' Matthew waved his hands dramatically in the spirit of surrender.

'You better,' Alex smirked. 'And just admit it, whether it was a hundred years ago or five, the concept is still the same.'

'Guys, do you mind?' Steven looked up from his book, 'I'm trying to read.'

* * *

_Starfleet academy, the largest non-commercial complex on Earth and only the second man-made object that can be seen from orbit, is considered by many to be the greatest achievement of mankind. It produces countless talents each year to join the best of the best in the United Federation of Planets: Starfleet._

_With the recent threats of the Borg and Dominion, and the weakened state of the Federation, that need for excellence has become ever more dire. It will be up to the next generation to protect Earth, to protect the paradise that humanity has had over five millennia to perfect.

* * *

_

'… if you wrong us, shall we not….'

'You know,' Matthew interrupted him, 'you guys have been talking about that book all day. Can you at least drop it at lunch?'

'Ok ok,' Steven laughed, 'you know we're just teasing you.'

'Sure, and you're loving every minute of it.' Matt smiled as he got up from his seat. 'The usual?'

'Sure,' Alex and Steve said in unison.

'That'll be…'

'Three rootbeers?' the Andorian bartender finished his sentence. 'I'm getting tired of this so I'm going to say it very slowly and hope that that tiny brain of yours can actually function from behind that giant wall of cheek and would-be humour.'

Matthew's eyes widened at the sudden outburst. 'Ok, ok… sorry.' He turned to Alex and Steve who both looked just as surprised.

'Um, two tarkalian teas and a ractagino.'

'What's up with him?' he shrugged as he passed the drinks to his friends.

'Too many working hours?' Alex suggested.

'I guess…' Steve muttered from behind his ractagino, but after taking only his first sip, the cup's contents were all over the table. A red-haired girl that looked very upset had collided with him as she hurried to leave the cafeteria.

'Sorry,' she mumbled and only when she looked up, did they realize that it was Kajsa Johansson, the top student in their year.

'You ok?' Steve asked in an unusually soft voice.

'Yeah,' she smiled slightly. 'Sorry for the mess.'

'Its fine, really,' Matthew added sympathetically. 'Besides, I'm sure Steven doesn't mind being hit by beautiful girls after all those gruesome aliens in his combat training.'

Steven gave him a scathing look, but Kajsa blushed slightly.

'What's going on?' a tall broad-shouldered blonde cadet about their age had witnessed the accident.

'Its ok,' Kajsa smiled at him. 'Just clumsy…' she trailed off.

The cadet put an arm around her shoulder and the two left the cafeteria.

'Who was that?' Steve asked casually, but the way he followed the two out of the room gave him away.

'Is that a hint of jealousy I see on my sensors?' Matthew mocked him, but Steven's glare told him to drop the subject. They were good enough friends to know when to draw the line.

Alex, on the other hand, great friend or not, didn't have that kind of restraint.

'I didn't know you liked Kajsa,' she shifted closer to him. 'So, have you told her yet?'

He waited silently, hoping that Alex might take the hint, but already knew that he wouldn't be able to put an end to this nonverbally.

'I don't want to talk about it ok?' he said, a little more harshly than he intended.

'Sheez,' Alex shifted back. 'I'm only kidding.'

Matthew decided to intervene before one of them would say something they'd later regret.

'That was Niklas man, her brother,' he put a lot of emphasis on the last word.

'Oh,' Steve muttered and gave Alex an apologetic look.

'Want another drink?' Matt asked, taking his elbow off the table and only realizing that he now had a large wet patch on his uniform.

'No, thanks, we only have a couple more minutes left anyways.'

'Ok, I'm going to change before I go to class,' Matt said as he got up.

'Don't take too long,' Alex said as she finished her tea and squeezed the ractagino from one of her sleeves. 'You know how those guys at Command are about punctuality.'

* * *

'Aren't you gonna change?' he laughed as Alex squeezed out more and more wet spots from her uniform.

'No, I think the instructors down at Conn have resigned and realized that I'm never going to be a tidy and proper little miss,' she gave him her best Barbie look and smiled innocently.

* * *

Alex may not mind getting a couple minor …… , but if Matt wanted to aim high in Command, he knew that he had to keep his record as clean as…. So when he had to stop for the third time to wait until the corridor cleared up because of a brawl between first years, it did nothing to improve his mood. When he finally reached his dorm, he changed at the speed of light, but already knew that he would be late for class.

He ran as quickly as possible, and paced nervously as he waited for the tram to take him to the section where his class was, but a quick glance at the digital clock as he pressed the button for the door to open told him that he was almost ten minutes late.

* * *

Alex slowly walked through the grounds towards the South Wing of the academy and laughed as people hurried to get to class in time.

So what if she came a little late? She knew that in the end, her decent exam results would far outweigh the couple of minor infractions, so why exert herself?

She reached the classroom a couple minutes late, but the helm expert from Japan just smiled at her as she entered and motioned towards one of the empty seats.

* * *

Steve had reached his class five minutes early as usual and after finding a seat close to the holoboard, punched up the code on his datapad to bring up the appropriate books with plenty of time to spare.

He liked this class and it wasn't just because it was his Science elective and only class he shared with Kajsa, who was a Science major. He looked over his shoulder to where she usually sat and was surprised to see a group of three Vulcans towering over her.

'You are sitting in my seat,' he heard the tallest Vulcan say in a matter-of-fact-ly manner, but the way he loomed over the little Swede didn't seem right.

Steven turned his seat around just as the Vulcan repeated the sentence, this time raising his voice. He immediately got up.

'What's going on here?' he said and the three Vulcans turned towards him.

'This doesn't concern you,' the tall one said again. 'The human is sitting in my seat.'

Steven was shocked at this kind of reaction. He had known Vulcans to give up their seats to everyone in the tram, always treat everybody with respect, help anyone in need, so this sort of confrontation was something completely unheard of.

'Not keeping your emotions in check as much lately, aren't you?' he knew he shouldn't have said it a fraction of a second too late and before he could react, two of the Vulcans grabbed his arms. The leader reached up to try and neck-pinch him, but Steven pushed hard on the floor and the upward thrust was enough for him to free one of his arms. He stepped sideways and in one swift motion, spun around to turn the last Vulcan's grip on him into an arm-lock in Steve's favour.

Kajsa let out a yelp as the leader pushed her off the seat.

'Leave her alone,' Steven shouted, but the moment of hesitation was enough for the Vulcan he held to pull free and elbow him in the face. He felt blood trickling down his face from his nose as he composed himself for another attack.

'What's going on here?' the professor said as he entered the room.

* * *

'You are late,' the Starship Command professor told Matthew as he entered the room.

'Sorry,' Matthew said, deciding that having to change because of a spilt ractagino wasn't the best excuse.

'See me at the end of the class.'

Matthew nodded and walked to the back of the class to find a free seat, kicking himself.

* * *

Steven sat with Kajsa on the other side of the waiting hall, looking across at the three Vulcans he fought with. He knew he shouldn't have let himself get into a fight, but who could have expected it from a couple of emotionless Vulcans?

Suddenly, the door opened and Matt and a Rigelian professor came in.

'Sit,' the professor said angrily and went into the counselor's office, where Steven's professor was already explaining what happened before class.

'What did you do?' Steven asked as Matthew sat next to him.

'Came late,' Matt shrugged, 'what's up with your nose?'

* * *

'That was a great class,' Alex thought to herself as she made her way back to her dorm. After a short walk through the campus she opened the door only to find the dorm empty.

She jumped on her bunk and wondered where the others were. Steven usually came back to the dorm straight after class, but Matthew could have gone to the holo-suite, or did he have fighter training after school? She got up to check the roster above his bunk, but he didn't have a session planned for that week at all.

She wondered whether Matthew would make Nova Squadron with all the training he did, but he never let them watch him fly, nor did he talk about how the training went. She was getting frustrated by the lack of conversation between herself and Matt. Besides friendly teasing and banter, no matter what she did, she couldn't get him to 'notice' her.

She frowned when she remembered his latest conquest. How could she compete with all those beautiful girls? And besides, he'd always think of her as one of the guys. Not that she'd mind, but seeing him with all those girls didn't make it any easier.

She left a note on the pad on the door and left for the gym.

* * *

'They've been there an awfully long time, haven't they?' Matthew said as he watched the time tick away on the clock above the door.

'What are they doing in there,' Steve wondered. 'It's a fairly straight forward matter. At least yours is…' he saw the very worried look on Kajsa's face and stopped.

'I'm sure you'll be fine,' he told her sympathetically. 'You had nothing to do with it.'

Suddenly the door opened and the two professors and counselor entered, a heated argument flaring between them.

'Vulcans don't fight,' the Rigelian shouted stubbornly, 'they must have been provoked.'

'What do you care? Didn't you come in here with that latecomer?' Steven's teacher said and gave him a look that said 'don't worry, I'll handle this'.

'I couldn't overhear the bullshit you were saying in there. Do you really expect me to believe that three Vulcans started a fight with a single human?

'Gentlemen, gentlemen,' the counselor tried to appeal, but Matthew and Steven knew immediately that something was wrong. These teachers weren't behaving normally. Come to think of it, many people had behaved strangely that day. The bartender, the first years in the corridors, the Vulcans, and now two professors?

'You three,' the human professor told Matthew, Steven and Kajsa. 'You can go, make sure it doesn't happen again. I'll have nobody embarrass us again.'

Matthew wondered what he meant by the 'us', but wasn't about to stand still and wait what happened next.

'That was weird,' he told Steven as they left the room.

* * *

But weird didn't seem to cover it. On their way back to the South Wing they saw two fights break out over completely stupid things. When they reached Kajsa's dorm they were confronted by her angry roommate, who shouted at Kajsa because she hadn't told her she'd come late and her coffee had gone cold.

Steven and Matthew invited the now scared girl to their own dorm, seeing as they had one empty bunk and couldn't find it in them to leave her with that hysterical Bolian.

'Everyone is behaving so…' Matthew began.

'Racist?' Steven offered. 'I've noticed.'

'And it's getting worse,' Kajsa said from behind her datapad. 'I started noticing it during lunch.'

'So that's why you were in such a hurry to get out of there,' Steve smiled at her.

'This definitely isn't normal,' Matthew was pacing across the room, 'I mean if even the Vulcans have been affected.'

'Wait,' Steven interrupted him, 'only the aliens have been affected. The Andorian bartender, Rigelian professor, Bolian roommate.'

'That's not true,' Kajsa said with a frown.

'Yeah, I'm sure at least some of the fighting first years were humans.'

'And our Quantum Physics teacher is human too,' Kajsa added.

'But they didn't start it!' Steven had raised his voice without even realizing it.

Kajsa gave Matthew a worried look.

'Oh my…' Steven's eyes widened. 'Where'd that come…' he sat on his bunk in silence.

'Its ok Steve, just try to keep it in check,' Matthew said encouragingly.

Steven took a deep breath and composed himself. He felt angry with himself again, but this time not because of a racist urge, he didn't want to scare Kajsa like that again. Ever.

'How come you guys aren't affected?' Steven felt weak, it wasn't like him to lose control.

'I don't think it has anything to do with race,' Matthew began pacing again, now that Steve had settled down. 'I mean, the Vulcans seemed to be just as affected as the Andorian, and we all know how close and far respectively they have to letting their emotions flare.'

'And Steven seems able to control it a lot better than our professor could and they're both normal humans,' Kajsa added much to Steven's delight.

'I do hope Alex is ok,' Matthew said when nobody could think of any reason why the whole academy appeared to be suffering from the 'racist plague'.

'Is that the girl from the cafeteria?' Kajsa asked, the disappointment hidden well in her voice. There was no way Steven could even notice her and her meter and half with that tall and athletic girl nearby. She never really minded that her brother get the 'tall gene' from her father, but boy did she feel short now…

'Yeah, her name is Alexandra,' Matthew laughed, 'but you'll do well never to call her 'that' when she's around.'

Suddenly the door opened and Alex entered.

'Speak of the Devil…' Matthew began.

* * *

Alex had enough of the bickering and was really looking forward to getting back to her dorm room, only to find Matthew there with another cute looking freckled redhead. That explained why he didn't come back right after class.

'Speak of the Devil,' Matthew said and Alex came up with the best fake smile she could muster at a time when disappointment ripped through her like a phaser blast.

Only when he said, 'You've met Kajsa before,' did she notice that Steven was also in the room. Suddenly all that disappointment and pain washed away only to be replaced by concern for one of her two best friends.

'What happened to your nose?'

* * *

'What's going on?' Admiral Andrews said, looking at the viewscreen showing conflict all over the academy. Some people were shouting and arguing, while others trading blows, but everybody seemed to be in chaos.

Students and professors alike seemed completely unable to control their emotions and got into racist tussles. A worried look spread across his face as his Tactical Officer notified him that factions of aliens were beginning to group together and attempting to reach Ops.

The Conn Officer turned on the intercom and tried to calm the crowd but it didn't help. They appeared to be very angry that the leader of the academy was a human and that less than half of the staff were aliens. They were rallying alien students and their number was increasing greatly.

'Hail Starfleet Command,' he ordered, 'Tell them to set up a quarantine around the academy. It seems that we have a psychotropic virus, probably in the air.

'Sir, we are being hailed from one of the Dorms. Meyers, Johansson and a couple others.'

'Put them through.'

* * *

'Sir, we think we know what's going on,' Matthew began.

'I'm listening,' the Admiral responded.

'There is something in the ractagino sir.'

'What?' the Admiral asked in surprise.

'The ractagino sir, everybody who's had some has been infected.'

'How do you…'

'We started noticing the changes after lunch. Our professors were behaving strangely and fights were popping up everywhere.'

'But how do you know it was...'

'The ractagino? We aren't sure, but the professors involved definitely drink the Klingon coffee, and then there's Steve.'

Matthew motioned towards his friend who came forward so he would appear in frame.

'I took a sip during lunch, before my cup got smashed,' he interchanged smiles with Kajsa. 'I could feel the effects, but it would explain why I could control the urge. I didn't get a large enough dose.'

'It's definitely affecting creating a rift between humans and the other aliens.'

'Thank you, Cadets, we'll get the Science and Medical teams to get right on it. You've done really well here to stay calm and analyze the situation,' he nodded at them approvingly. 'Anything else?'

'Yes, the good news,' Alex beamed at him, 'it appears that the effects are wearing off.'

'I don't feel anything anymore, the only problem is that I only had a small sip and it took more than an hour for it to wear off,' Steven explained.

'That could mean a couple hours, maybe a day for those that had a cup,' the Admiral rationalized. 'Excellent work. We'll sort this out, you just stay put and try to avoid any conflict.'

The admiral gave them one last smile of approval and the screen went black.

After a few minutes of nervous pacing and staring at the door, they realized that it was much harder to 'stay put' than one would think.

Alex was looking outside the window across the park with Zefram Cochrane's statue, wondering what was going on, when a giant crowd emerged from their block and made its way towards the South Wing. She called everyone to the window and they all looked in horror as another swarm of people appeared on the other side and got ready to confront it.

'We've got to do something,' Matthew exclaimed. 'Is that Niklas?'

'But we've been told to stay here,' Kajsa said in a weak voice.

'People are going to get hurt, your brother is there…' Alex appealed to her.

'I… I can't…' Kajsa collapsed on the bunk and covered her face.

'It's ok,' Steve said softly, 'We'll go find him. Just stay here and don't open to anyone.'

Kajsa looked at Steve and even though her eyes were already filling up with tears, managed to smile a 'thank you'.

Matthew jumped to 'command mode' immediately and started delegating tasks.

'Steve, we're going to need those stun phasers you use in training,' Steve nodded in acknowledgement.

'Al, I need you to do the 'computer thing' and contact Ryan Moore. Hopefully, he's one of those hiding and waiting this thing out, rather than in the ractagino loving bunch,' she accessed the console and began hacking the system immediately.

'I'm going to try and get Niklas. Either way, we all meet here in 0100 hours.'

He was just about to leave. 'Oh yeah, if someone doesn't return, forget everything and just stay here. We're doing this to try and help a few people, not endanger even more.'

* * *

Ryan sat in front of his console, forcing his way deeper and deeper into the Starfleet Academy computer. After an hour of frustration, the screen finally flashed and a plethora of cameras appeared. He quickly scanned over them and selected a few. He could see the mob of humans retreat back into the South Wing and prepare for combat.

The professors were barking out orders while the cadets ripped the entrance hall apart to create makeshift weapons.

Suddenly, he heard a beep and a symbol began flashing in the corner of his screen. Somebody was sending him a coded message through the main computer.

* * *

Matthew pushed his way through the crowd. Thankfully, their racist animosity was all directed towards the aliens and he had no trouble going as he pleased.

Finally, he saw the back of a blond head that stuck out of the crowd. He smiled to himself. Being six feet tall was definitely a good characteristic when you were looking for someone.

'Hey Nickie, Nick!' he shouted as soon as he was in hearing distance.

'What is it?' Niklas barked.

'I need you to come with me,' Matthew tried.

'Sorry, a bit busy right now,' he said and showed Matt the spear he had made from a piece of glass and steel brace.

'No, no… I've seen a couple Vulcans at the dorms. They're attacking the human cadets over there.'

This seemed to grab his attention and he turned to Matt.

'So? What are we waiting for?'

* * *

It had almost been an hour and everyone but Matthew had returned. Ryan was sitting in front of the console with Alex, trying to squeeze out a little more information on the two sides. It seemed like the aliens had split up into two groups. One was trying to get to Ops and the other preparing for an all out battle with the humans.

Steve was trying to comfort Kajsa, who was on the verge of tears again, when the door finally opened and Matthew dragged in a tied up and gagged Niklas.

'Sorry,' he looked apologetically towards Kajsa, 'there was no other way.'

'What took you so long?' Steve said as Kajsa rushed towards her brother.

'Stuff,' Matthew muttered.

'So, what's the plan?' Ryan asked from the console.

'The humans have retreated deeper into the building and have prepared an ambush for the aliens. I need you to do your magic and lower the security fields before the aliens reach the trap. They're offline right now. One of the professors must have anticipated this and done something to them. Alex is going to go see if she can do something about that, while Steve and I will try to delay them as much as possible.'

'Wait,' Kajsa interjected. 'You can't just lower the fields. Those people aren't thinking clearly, they could try charging them and hurt themselves in the process.'

Everybody else turned towards her.

'I could reconfigure the fields so that they would stun whoever tried to pass through them.'

'There's a reason why she's the top student in our class,' Alex smirked.

'Alright, go with Alex. Let's do it guys.'

* * *

Matthew made it sound so simple, but Steven knew they had nowhere near enough firepower to keep a crowd of over a hundred aliens at bay, but when he turned a corner towards the dining hall, he was met with a pleasant sight.

'This took me so long!' Matthew smiled as about twenty people from his usual crew during simulated command operations walked over and picked up stun phasers.

'Ok guys, makes sure your setting is on the lowest level, we don't want to hurt anyone any more than is absolutely necessary.'

* * *

'What's taking so long?' Ryan said nervously as he watched Alex and Kajsa tamper with the field generator.

He heard a soft rustling from behind, but a quick glance reassured him that Niklas was still firmly tied down, but the moment he turned back to the screen he felt a sharp blow to his head and the last thing he heard before he passed out was: 'take that you prosthetic freak.'

* * *

'Ryan?' Alex spoke into the intercom.

'Ryan, we're done,' Kajsa repeated.

No response.

'C'mon, hurry…' Alex shouted to the redhead and quickly ran back to the dorm.

* * *

'We need those fields,' Matthew shouted as phaser fire surrounded him. The aliens were charging across the park separating the two wings of the academy. They realized that the minimum setting, though enough to knock out an average teenager, was nowhere near to strong enough to knock down the three times as strong and agile Vulcans.

'Matt,' Steven, who had taken charge of the combat tactics, called out from behind a overturned table. 'Take half and retreat back into the building. We'll hold them up a while longer, and then come after you.'

'Either way, if those fields don't kick in sometime soon, it doesn't matter. They're almost on top of us.'

* * *

'Open the door,' Alex screamed and punched in the access code yet again.

'If we don't get in now, they're going to run over them like a stampede,' she said to Kajsa. 'We've got to do something.' There was desperation in her voice.

'Nickie, please, open the door,' Kajsa cried. 'Please let me in.'

'You're helping them, helping the aliens,' they heard him reply. 'Traitors.'

'Niklas, I know you're in there somewhere. Steven could fight it and so can you. Just try.'

'What's there to fight? There's nothing wrong with me.' Niklas laughed from behind the door. 'There are plenty of aliens, nobody's going to miss a few.'

'Niklas?' Alex shouted in a last effort. 'If you don't open the door I'm going to shoot your sister.'

She held her breath, but no reply came.

'Don't make me do this,' she tried again.

Suddenly the door opened, but to their amazement, Ryan stood over a collapsed Niklas with a datapad in his hand.

'It looks like your threat really hit him bad,' Ryan laughed as the two girls came in.

* * *

Steven ran through the corridor, two Andorians on his heels when something yellow flashed before him. Before he could stop, he passed through the barrier and passed out immediately.

When he opened his eyes he was sprawled across his bunk with a worried Kajsa sitting next to him.

'Hi…' he said softly.

'Hello sleepyhead,' she smiled nervously.

'What's going on, where is everyone?' he asked.

'We did it, the big groups are separated and we're just waiting for the effects to wear off. The others have gone out to help the Starfleet personnel and brief them on what's happened.'

'Why aren't you with them?'

'What? Uh…' she paused to think. 'I have to watch my brother, he did some stupid things when he was affected.'

'Right,' the man in question said from the other side of the room, 'and she's doing it from over there. You figure.'

Steven wanted to laugh, but he was too tired and the world around him blurred again.

* * *

When he came to again, he was greeted by Matthew and a beaming Alex.

'You feeling alright?' Alex asked, still unable to remove the broad smile that was plastered all over her face.

'Yeah, fine…' he muttered.

'I've just been debriefed by Admiral Andrews,' Matthew told him as he slowly sat up, his head still throbbing from being knocked out. 'He commended all of us for our great work,' he paused for effect, 'and told us that if we ever tried anything like that again, he'll be sending us home in a heartbeat.'

The three best friends laughed for a healthy couple of minutes as they recounted the day's events.

'So, you still think all this stuff about racism is pointless?' Steven teased.

'Excuse me?' Matthew gave him an innocent look and punched out 'I have a dream' on his datapad.


	3. 1x03 Holosuite Experience

Episode 1x03 – Holosuite Experience

Alex paced in front of the bathroom nervously.

'Will you _please_ hurry up?' she called out for the dozenth time.

'Did you say somethin'? Steve's head popped out of the shower, 'it's called a sonic shower for a reason,' he smiled innocently, waited for a moment longer just to see the desperate look on his friend's face, then got out.

'Finally,' Alex muttered to herself, then added in a much louder voice, 'we're going to be late, you know.'

Steve gave her a curious look, 'Ok, ok, keep your shirt on, it's only Matt after all…'

'And he's invited us into the holosuite for the first time,' she added.

'So?' Steve tried to discern the look on Alex's face.

'So,' Alex said slowly, as if speaking to an unknowing child, 'we'll finally find out what he's doing in there all the time.'

'Why are you so obsessed about that? Besides, I doubt that we're going to see his usual program. I'll clean the circuits on the laundry machine for a month if it's not some sort of grand Starfleet event or a cruise on a famous ship.'

'You've got no imagination at all,' Alex frowned.

'Is that right?'

'You guys are so clueless,' she added in a barely audible whisper.

At this Steven smiled. 'Are you sure you're talking about my imagination here?'

Alex looked confused. 'What would I be talking about?' she added quickly.

'Alex, I know,' Steve said simply.

But Alex didn't reply, she just gave Steve a long meaningful look and left the room in the direction of the turbolift.

* * *

Matthew tapped a few commands into the main console at lightning speed and then braced himself as the computer executed the complex attack pattern he had designed himself. The wild maneuvers fooled not only the pursuing fighter, but also the gravity generator of his own ship. Had he not been strapped in, he would have probably bounced around the fighter's interior like a tennis ball. He made a mental note to thank Captain Picard for finally suggesting adding seatbelts to all federation starships if he ever met him.

With a few quick swipes of his left hand, he brought his pulse phasers online. As the pulled up behind the Dominion fighter he issued the command to 'fire' A quick phaser burst later, Matthew was flying through the debris of his attacker.

'Good work Mr. Meyers, new move?' came from beside Matt. He looked to his right and noticed his flight instructor was standing just outside the fighter, knocking on the starboard window and giving him a big 'thumbs-up'.

'Having a little spacewalk, sir?' Matthew smiled.

The instructor smiled right back. 'There's someone here to see you.'

'End program,' Matthew said and the virtual environment around him vanished. He realized only too late that he was still sitting down and fell onto the holosuite floor as the seat beneath him vanished. His instructor laughed.

'It's hard to believe that this,' he pointed down at Matthew, 'is my best fighter pilot.'

'If I didn't know better, I'd think you were making fun of me,' Matthew got to his feet, still grinning.

'So who's here to see me? Is it Alex or Steve? I've got a holosuite booked with them after training.'

The instructor laughed again.

'What? What's so funny?'

'Son, training ended half an hour ago…'

'Shoot,' Matthew made for the door.

'Wait just a moment,' the instructor stopped him, 'I have a feeling that your friends won't mind waiting for you just a moment longer,' he paused for dramatic effect. 'I'm not so sure about the Cadets from Nova Squadron though.'

Matthew stared at him in shock.

'I'm proud of you Matt.'

* * *

Matthew beamed as he made his way to the holosuite. Nova Squadron, the elite group of Starfleet Academy fighter pilots had picked him out to replace one of the Cadets in their ranks. She was in her fourth and final year and they'd need a replacement after she graduated. Starting from next year, he would be flying with the best of the best. And not only that, he'd actually get to do it for real. No more holosuites, no more simulations, 'real' flying.

He finally reached the holosuite almost an hour late. It was a testament to their friendship that Alex and Steve hadn't given up and waited for him the whole time. Or maybe they just couldn't pass up the opportunity to finally get in on one of his holosuite experiences.

'Sorry I'm late,' he apologized and even though Steve didn't make it easy for him by pretending to be asleep and then acting very surprised that he was in the corridor and not on his bunk, they quickly forgot the whole 'late issue' and Matthew inputted his ID into the console by the door.

* * *

_Starfleet academy, the largest non-commercial complex on Earth and only the second man-made object that can be seen from orbit, is considered by many to be the greatest achievement of mankind. It produces countless talents each year to join the best of the best in the United Federation of Planets: Starfleet._

_With the recent threats of the Borg and Dominion, and the weakened state of the Federation, that need for excellence has become ever more dire. It will be up to the next generation to protect Earth, to protect the paradise that humanity has had over five millennia to perfect.

* * *

_

There was a loud murmur of voices as Ryan entered his last class of the day. He looked around to see the source of the commotion, but when he heard a very famous Dublin accent coming from the holo-board, he knew what all the fuss was about. There was no mistaking Miles O'Brien, the most famous Irishman in Starfleet. Introduction to Advanced Engineering and Warp Field Theory was one of the hardest courses available to second years, but it was still just that: a second year course. Ryan never expected to see the 'man' himself standing before him so soon.

The two hours that followed would be the best Ryan ever spent inside a classroom. O'Brien didn't only have vast knowledge of warp engines, but he had the experience to back it. Having fought in the Cardassian and Dominion Wars, spent many years on the Enterprise and advanced Starfleet technology in countless ways by his work on the USS Defiant, he was en encyclopedia of knowledge.

* * *

As Matthew, Steven and Alex entered the holosuite, it immediately took the shape Matt had planned. He smiled as he saw the faces of his friends light up as they looked around in awe. They were standing on the bridge of the legendary USS Enterprise, the Constitution Class vessel that played such a pivotal part in the events of the twenty-third century.

'That's not even half of it,' Matthew's smile deepened as he walked to the center of the bridge and sat down in the captain's seat. 'Computer. Execute program Enterprise One.'

Suddenly, the bridge filled up with people. Some stood or sat by their stations, others walked to and fro as they brought the vessel's systems online. The main viewscreen lit up and magnificent image of Starbase 001 appeared ahead.

'You may have noticed that the Tactical and Helm officers are missing,' Matthew said in a matter-of-fact-ly tone as his friends took their usual posts.

'Where did you get this?' Alex said breathlessly.

'I take it you won't have trouble adjusting from Conn to Helm?' Matthew avoided her question.

'Helm is just Conn without all the boring navigation stuff. But I guess it doesn't make sense to have two separate stations anymore,' Alex frowned. 'Hey, don't change the subject!'

'Ok ok, I found it in one of the training databases and took the liberty of touching it up a bit. I mean, do you really want to pilot this baby through navi-cones or take her out for a spin through the Crab nebula?'

'Definitely the latter,' Steven gave Matthew a thumbs-up.

'Alright, Miss Hudson, take her out. Straight and steady.'

* * *

When the lesson was over, Ryan was disappointed that it couldn't have gone on further. It wasn't the noblest of thoughts, but Ryan hoped their regular professor would be out sick at least a week longer, though he seriously doubted O'Brien would cover another second year class two weeks in a row. Just as he was wondering if he'd even have another class with him before his fourth year, one of his classmates stopped him.

'Man,' he was obviously sizing Ryan up. 'The professor is asking to see you in his office.'

Shocked didn't quite cover it. Ryan stared at the cadet for a few seconds, waiting for him to say something like 'got ya' or 'can't believe you fell for that, but the cadet just stared back at him.

'Well?' he asked. 'You goin' or not?'

He didn't know what to think as he made his way to the Engineering staff section. What could Miles O'Brien possibly want with him? Or did he just screw something up and was going to have to listen to his idol reprimanding him?

* * *

They decided to take a short cruise of the Sol system at impulse, before they'd warp to the Crab Nebula, but just as they passed the fiery orb of Mars, alarms started going off all over the bridge.

'Three ships decloaking, aft,' Steven said with a laugh. 'Another of you little tweaks, Matt?' but Matthew's face wasn't amused.

'No,' he muttered. 'This isn't part of the program.'

'An unknown ship of Romulan design with two escort vessels,' one of the holographic officers called out.

'That's a D'Deridex Warbird,' Matthew said, thoroughly confused. 'Those things are twice as large as a Galaxy Class Starship.'

'They're going to red alert,' the officer added.

'Shields up!' Matthew commanded, but Steven didn't respond in time. The bridge shook and Alex screamed as the terminal in front of her exploded.

Matthew and Steven stared in shock as Alex looked over her hand which was clearly severely burned. She staggered, but Matthew was there to catch her.

'Computer. End program.' Matthew and Steve said in unison. Nothing.

Another blast jerked the Enterprise sideways.

'Shields at twenty percent,' Steven called urgently from the Tactical Station. 'Another blast like that and we're gone.'

Matthew shuddered. None of them had said it, but all three of them knew that if the simulation could burn Alex's hand, it could just as well burn them all alive, holosuite or not.

'They're arming plasma torpedoes,' Steven said even more desperately. 'Those things will blast a hole the size of a building into our hull if they hit.'

'This old ship is no match for a twenty-fourth century Dreadnaught,' Alex said in a weak voice.

'Alex, I'll take the helm,' Matthew started barking out orders. 'Steven, give me cover fire while I take us into the asteroid belt. If we can't beat them, we're going to have to outrun them.'

The maneuver seemed to work. The giant Romulan starship stopped just at the edge of the asteroid belt, unable to pursue the smaller and more nimble Enterprise.

'The Warbird is breaking off pursuit,' Steven said triumphantly. 'But the escort craft are still on our tail.'

'Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all,' Matthew said worriedly. 'We're flying a kilometer long heavy cruiser through an asteroid belt.'

Matthew prayed that the data the antiquated navigation system was supplying him would be enough, but as they flew deeper and deeper into the belt, the information started coming in too fast for Matthew to keep up. Suddenly a chain of contradictory data came pouring in and a giant asteroid filled the viewscreen.

Even with thrusters at maximum, Matthew instinctively knew that it wouldn't be enough.

'Cut the engines,' Alex said from beside him.

There was no time to question. He immediately complied and as the ship slowed down, its turning radius increased dramatically, allowing them to pass the asteroid with a few hundred meters to spare.

'You're used to flying with a fighter Matt,' Alex gave him an encouraging smile. 'Starships aren't nearly as nimble. You've got to take subspace momentum and therefore giant turning arcs into account.'

'They're still on our tail,' Steven said from behind. 'Brace for impact.'

Two disruptors hit the Enterprise somewhere on the port side. The next blast threw Matthew forward and out of the captain's seat.

'Shields down,' Steven called out, 'plasma leaks on decks two, three, seven and thirteen.'

'They stopped firing,' said a holographic officer.

'Prepare to be boarded,' Matthew responded automatically.

'Security teams to the bridge,' Steven added, but before he could finish there was a green flash of light as the Romulans transported directly to the bridge.

Steven and Matthew immediately drew their phasers and shot the two boarders nearest to them, but Alex wasn't as fast. She let out a small yelp as a disruptor blast caught her in the shoulder and she collapsed onto the bridge floor.

Matthew dived behind the console next to her and pulled her out of direct fire while Steven and the security team that had arrived fended off the rest of the Romulans.

After quickly checking that Alex was alright, Matthew joined the fight and together with Steve and the last surviving officer, took down the last of the Romulans.

'Status… report,' Matthew said in between breaths.

'We're dead in space, sir,' the officer said in a weak voice.

The bridge shook again and Matthew was thrown against the viewscreen.

* * *

Ryan sat in a comfortable chair and looked around. Professor O'Brien made him wait in his office, said he 'had some important business to see to', so Ryan would do just that. But as he looked around, his sight fell on a screen to the right of O'Brien's desk. There was a video message looping over and over. He tried to ignore it at first, but then his curiosity took over. He looked around and walked over to the screen.

'Hello Miles, everything alright with Keiko and Molly?' Ryan suddenly felt bad for intruding on the man's privacy and was about to turn back when he heard something that froze him in place. 'You know the…' he paused. 'unnamed rogue group that we talked about last time... I think they are planning something in Starfleet Academy soon. Perhaps very soon. They've been monitoring one particular student very carefully, a Matthew Meyers. I believe they will attempt something during one of his holosuite visits. This might be our chance to expose them… Good luck. Julien out.'

Ryan stared at the message in shock as it looped and started again from the beginning.

'Matt?' Ryan thought. 'Did O'Brien deliberately leave this on? Did he want him to see this and warn his friend?'

* * *

'Alex…' Matthew called out into the darkness desperately. 'Steve…'

The emergency lighting came on and Matthew looked around. The entire ship was shaking, the unstable warp core ready to rip it into pieces. Pain was shooting through is body, but he slowly got to his feet.

'Matt,' he heard a barely audible whisper ahead. Steven was helping Alex stand up, a trail of blood running across his forehead.

'I'll take care of her,' Matthew said quickly and overcoming his pain, scooped Alex up in his arm. She mumbled something and gave him a very weak smile, then her head fell back and she passed out.

'We have to get to the shuttle bay,' he told Steven quickly. 'Can you make it?'

* * *

Ryan had sprinted across the entire campus back to his dormitory. As soon as the stitch in his side eased a little, he started hacking into the Starfleet Academy main computer. He brought up the schematics and data coming from holosuite ten. Matthew had invited him to join Steven and Alex for what he called 'an adventure like no other', but Ryan had to decline because of his afternoon Advanced Engineering class. Everything seemed perfectly fine at first. Yes, there had been slight modifications done to the original programming, but that could be expected.

Then he noticed a loop in a very minor section of the programming. Somebody was looping a small sub-routine to mask whatever it was they were doing to the holosuite. O'Brien's source was right, the 'group' had infiltrated the holosuite and had reprogrammed some of its components. They were definitely in a hurry, because Ryan was almost sure that had he enough time he could make such intrusion undetectable.

He didn't hesitate for a moment. 'Cadet Ryan Moore to Miles O'Brien.'

* * *

They hoisted Alex into the shuttle and carefully sat her down in one of the spare seats.

'Hold on tight,' Matthew said as he strapped himself in and fired the thrusters.

The shuttle shot out of the cargo bay just moments before the warp core finally gave way. The Enterprise gave one last cry of pain as the antimatter cascade tore its hull apart.

Matthew's hands flew over the controls as he dodged disruptor blast after disruptor blast. He was flying like he had never flown before. He programmed another complex set of evasive maneuvers into the computer and stole a quick glance to the back of the shuttle to check on Steve and Alex. They looked alright. Alex had come to and Steven's head wound mustn't have been that serious. This sudden turn of luck inspired Matthew to do something unthinkable.

The moment he saw what he was looking for ahead of him, he slowed the shuttle down so that the two Romulan frigates were just a few hundred meters behind him and waited a fraction of a second to give them a clear shot. Allowing his intuition to take over, he responded even before the computer could tell him that their pursuers had locked onto them, killed the engines and fired the forward thrusters.

The two Falcon starships fired their disruptors at the target in front of them, but the delay between the command and the discharge caused them to fly right over Matthew's shuttle and fire their disruptors blindly ahead. The blasts hit the giant asteroid ahead and instead of tearing it to pieces, rebounded back. They collided with one of the Romulan ships, passed straight through the shields, and ripped through its hull.

* * *

'Sir, I can't isolate the phantom readings in the holosuite. I'm afraid we can't tell where the signal is coming from.'

'Good work Ryan,' O'Brien said over the comm system. 'I'm in the adjacent holosuite. I'll try to contain them, but our best bet is to get in ourselves. Can you try to use the same technique the impostors have?'

'I think I can manage a few small modifications, why?'

'We're going to change the rules just as they have. I'm transmitting the modifications to your dormitory console as we speak. As soon as you're done, meet me in holosuite eleven.'

Ryan looked at the instructions. It seemed doable, but: 'Sir, you want me to patch the holosuite through to holosuite thirty one as well, why?'

'We're going to need the best pilots at hand…'

* * *

'They're hailing us,' Steven said, 'sound only.'

'Well done,' a vaguely familiar voice echoed through the intercom. It was one of the Cadets from Nova Squadron.

Matthew scowled as he saw the viewscreen fill with the image of the nine Nova Squadron members.

'You've got what it takes to become one of us,' the one in the middle continued, but Matthew cut across him.

'Screw you!' he shouted at them. 'What the HELL is wrong with you? Somebody could have got killed today!'

'But thanks to you, that didn't happen. We need people like…'

'Shut up and end the program,' Matthew couldn't believe what he was hearing.

'I'm afraid I can't do that,' he replied calmly.

'Ever since I joined Starfleet, I dreamed of getting into Nova Squadron. But this is insane. Haven't you learned from the mistakes of Red Squad?'

'How did you know the blast was going to rebound like that?' one of them asked, completely nonplussed by Matthew's outburst.

'Disruptors bounce right off concentrated Antiprotons like those on the deflector dish used by the Sovereign Class Starship. Incidentally, antiprotons are left over after extensive Dilithium mining…'

'And that was a Dilithium asteroid,' the leader commented, 'interesting.'

'Interesting!?' Steven exclaimed for the first time. 'Is that all you're going to say?'

'We had to test you Mr. Meyers, you must understand that.'

'I can't believe anybody in the Academy would be capable of that,' Alex said in a tone that didn't quite hide her anger.

'And what makes you think we're from the Academy?' the leader said again.

'You're Nova…' but several alerts going off made it impossible for Matthew to finish his sentence.

'Seven Saber Class starships approaching at high warp,' Alex said confusedly.

'What's going on?' the man commanded. 'What is this?'

'We're being hailed,' Steve said from the Communications console.

'On screen.'

The viwscreen spilt itself up to make way for the seven new images coming in, each showing an empty deck. Empty of crew, all but for the Captains seat, where each of the Nova Squadron Cadets sat.

Matthew glanced back and forth from the pairs of identical faces. 'Who,' he began.

'No time,' a couple of the cadets said almost simultaneously. Suddenly another ship appeared, the Enterprise… E.

While the cadets on the Romulan ship started muttering and taking out strange devices, a ninth screen appeared. It was Ryan and a very familiar looking officer.

'You're not the only ones that can hack into a holosuite,' Ryan said from the First Officer's seat.

'You'll find that a myotronic inhibitor has been set up around the holosuite,' added the officer. 'I'd strongly recommend against trying getting out.'

'Matt, get out of here,' the Nova Squadron leader on one of the Saber ships said in an anxious voice. 'They're not from Nova Squadron. Ryan and Chief O'Brien patched us through from one of our training progams.'

Matthew sat in his seat dumbfounded. They didn't exactly have the best of luck and he still wasn't sure what he should believe.

'This is a one in a lifetime opportunity Mr. Meyers,' the impostor said calmly. 'We need a good pilot, you should be honored that we chose you.'

'And who exactly is "we"?' Matthew scowled, but the man just laughed.

'Very well,' and with a blinding flash of light, the seven impostors vanished.

'Cadet?' O'Brian said immediately.

'They got past the inhibitor somehow,' Ryan said dejectedly.

* * *

'Sure you can't tell us who they were?' Matthew asked O'Brien. Steven, Alex, Ryan and he were having lunch with the famous engineer the next day. 'I've been through six hours of debriefings that felt a lot more like interrogations,' he added hopefully.

'I'm afraid not,' O'Brien grinned.

'So you did leave that message on in your office on purpose?' Ryan asked in a weak voice, he still couldn't believe he was now on speaking terms with his idol.

'I knew there was a rogue organization,' the four students sighed in disappointment, 'you won't get anything out of me!' he said with a laugh. 'Well, there was a rogue organization working in Starfleet Academy. Julien told me that something would be going down today, but I knew I couldn't do it myself. Somebody had to find out what they were trying to do and what would be better than a student working on the inside? It was a stroke of luck that Cadet Moore here is a close friend of the student they were after.'

'Why did they pretend they were from Nova squadron?' Matthew asked.

'I'd have thought you would have figured that out after answering all those questions,' O'Brien smiled. 'They thought you would trust them, thought your dream of joining Nova Squadron would cloud your judgment.'

'I still don't understand,' Steven said after remaining silent for the whole time. 'If they're willing to bend, or even break the rules, why not just kidnap Matt in his sleep?'

'Well, THAT won't keep me up at night,' Matthew joked.

'Sorry,' Steven gave him a lopsided grin. 'I think they wanted you to join willingly.'

'You're right,' O'Brien nodded appraisingly. 'They believe what they are doing is right, but enough of that, or my tongue might just slip.'

He got up and everybody immediately responded.

'At ease,' he frowned. 'I still can't believe they made me an officer. Now I have to listen to everyone call me 'sir'.'

The four cadets laughed as O'Brien left the mess hall.


	4. 1x04 Ex Astris Scientia

Episode 1x04 – Ex Astris Scientia

'As you all know, the third year of Starfleet Academy entails observation duty on a Federation vessel. But before we can send you to a real starbase or ship, we have to make sure you have what it wakes. We can't have incompetent cadets causing more problems than they can solve.'

Admiral Andrews paused while a couple of the students sitting before him nudged each other and laughed.

'You will therefore be required to take a special exam on top of all your course finals that will determine whether you are ready to go out into the real world or not. This exam will include many of the things you have already studied in your other courses, but will also test your logical reasoning, decision making and physical ability. It will be somewhat similar to the general aptitude tests and Kobayashi Maru Final that await you at the end of your forth and final year at the academy.'

Many students started muttering, the Kobayashi Maru was almost as famous as Starfleet Academy itself.

'Some of you will be glad to hear,' he gave Matthew a meaningful look and a few students looked around, 'that it will mostly be a practical exam.'

'Now, since the whole point of the third year is 'learning through experience', we do not expect stellar performance. However, the level of your performance will determine the type of assignment you can expect.'

More students started muttering.

'This doesn't mean that if you score perfectly you'll spend your third year on a Galaxy Class starship, but it can mean the difference between being able to chose between a couple of small science vessels monitoring particularly interesting parts of Federation space or being stuck on an uneventful station in the Sol system.'

'Your field of study will of course determine the positions available, but we think that the choice is particularly broad this year. You may not land the assignment you hoped for, but as members of Starfleet, we don't always have the luxury of serving where we'd please**.'**

Matthew and several other cadets suppressed a laugh. Anyone who knew Admiral Andrews also knew that he regretted giving up command of his fleet to oversee the academy.

'You will undoubtedly be faced with this dilemma many more times in your career in Starfleet, so you might as well start getting used to it.'

'Talk about pessimism,' Matthew winked at Alex, who was sitting next to him, looking confused.

'What did he mean by that?' she whispered.

'I'll tell you later,' Matthew smirked.

'A list of available postings will be sent to you via your dormitory consoles. Hopefully, this will motivate you for the upcoming exams, if pride itself won't do it.'

* * *

_Starfleet academy, the largest non-commercial complex on Earth and only the second man-made object that can be seen from orbit, is considered by many to be the greatest achievement of mankind. It produces countless talents each year to join the best of the best in the United Federation of Planets: Starfleet._

_With the recent threats of the Borg and Dominion, and the weakened state of the Federation, that need for excellence has become ever more dire. It will be up to the next generation to protect Earth, to protect the paradise that humanity has had over five millennia to perfect.

* * *

_

Steven looked down the list with slight disappointment. He understood why all of the possibilities were considered low-risk. They couldn't send cadets into combat, but how was he supposed to learn real-hand combat tactics in the heart of the Federation? He supposed he would be cleaning the brig or something. Out of all the choices he supposed a Starbase would be the best. Even with the peaceful nature of the central core of the Federation, there were bound to be much more security issues. Besides, a trade dispute or a bit of Ferengi scheming would at least give him something to do. Something he really couldn't say about all those freighter assignments. Well, unless they were attacked by a pirate ship, but what were the chances of that? And even if they were attacked, with almost no weapons to speak of, they'd probably just raise shields and send out a distress signal.

* * *

Alex sat quietly on her bed, looking more at Matt than the list in front of her.

'I wonder what he's going to chose,' she thought. She hoped that it wouldn't be a Starbase, since that would rule out any chance of them spending the third year together. Her list was restricted to freighters and small ships, seeing as Starbases would have little need for a Flight Controller. She ruled out the science vessels, since she doubted Matt would ever set foot on one of those, but that still left her with a very wide choice.

Even though he'd completely deny it, Matt was a very good student. He'd often get the top results in their year, but then attribute it to good weather or a good night's sleep. She supposed it was a trait of a good commanding officer, to weasel out of taking any credit. What that meant, though, was that he'd probably score high enough to choose any assignment he pleased. The question was: 'could she?' She noticed one of the civilian transport ships would be going to the outer edge of the Federation core. A very likely candidate, but could she really make the ninety-fifth percentile? Her hopes fell slightly as she pictured Matt going off into the unknown with a flock of girls around him while she sat next to the Conn officer on some garbage hauler.

There was another option. She could simply ask him to choose something else. She looked over to the other side of the room and watched Matt run a hand through his long hair as he peered intently on the datapad in front of him. No. She just couldn't do it.

Suddenly, Matt turned and looked at her. She quickly turned away, but not before their eyes met. She felt as though his gaze had pierced right through her, pierced through her veil of strength and revealed the fear within. But there was also something else in his gaze, was that fear she saw in his eyes? What could he possibly be afraid of? But when she looked back he was back to his usual cheery expression. Maybe she had imagined it. Maybe she wanted him to feel insecure… so he'd need her more.

'So, what have you got?' Matthew said cheerily. He had jumped off his bunk and was now looking over her shoulder at her list.

'Well, I thought…' but her voice trailed away.

'That freighter looks interesting, doesn't it?'

Alex stared at him, 'B-But… you could…I mean…'

He raised an eyebrow, 'What? You really want to split up the great 'trio' so badly?' he wiggled his finger mockingly, 'Shame on you.'

Alex blushed slightly, but something inside her was telling her 'this is all too easy.' And with that, her resolve returned.

'I won't let you,' she said stubbornly.

Matthew laughed.

'H-Hey, that's not fair…' she pouted her bottom lip.

'I appreciate the effort Al, I really do, but that's the one I want. So unless you're not going to let me take the best assignment, I might as well ask Admiral Andrewsto let me repeat my second year.'

Alex blushed slightly, suddenly very interested in the keys on her datapad.

'Hey, I've got that one too,' Steven said, joining in.

'You guys…' Alex was turning crimson now.

'I was considering a Starbase assignment,' he said in his usual honest manner, but added an overly serious look that suggested the other aspect of his personality would be kicking in very soon. 'I figured I could do without the constant whining of you two. It's really getting on my nerves you know…'

'But that's going to be really boring,' Alex tried to protest.

'Not unless Matt tries to do something crazy and lands himself in the brig,' Steve said with a meaningful look, 'you know how long I've waited for an opportunity like that?'

Alex opened her mouth to speak, but Matt interrupted her. 'Will you stop worrying about us and think about yourself for a change?'

'I…' she began.

'Alright, it's settled,' Matthew said and threw his pad back on his bed.

'Now all we have to do is make the top quartile of our class,' Steven said, but they all knew that was well within their abilities.

'Well,' Matt said, getting up. 'It's time for my holosuite appointment.'

* * *

Alex sat on her bunk with a wide smile plastered over her face. She was looking over some of the requirements that had come with the assignment lists. The first part of the exam was pretty general, many separate tasks from the fields of engineering and science to test their general starship knowledge. Then there was close and ranged combat, zero gravity training, a physical evaluation and field medicine. Obviously meant to test their survival skills. Finally, the field-specific part, in her case: Flight Control. She'd have no problem scoring high in the Conn Part, but if she was going to land the top quartile, she'd have to look over all of those introductory courses she took in her first year.

She walked over to Matt's bunk and picked up his datapad. It appeared that the first two parts really were identical for all of the cadets, but she noticed that on top of his 'Command' section, he'd also be taking something called a 'bridge officer' test. She frowned slightly. Wasn't that something only Starfleet officers ranked Commander and above took? What did that mean? She supposed it could be the fact that if something happened he'd be required to take command, commission or no commission, but that didn't really make sense. There would be plenty of other Starfleet officers aboard much more qualified than he was.

But before she could ponder the thought more, her gaze fell on the list of assignments Matthew had on his pad. Her jaw dropped.

USS Lexington

USS Titan

USS Endeavour

USS Odyssey

The list went on… and on… and on. Nebula Class, Galaxy Class, Akira Class starships. What did this mean? She scrolled all the way down to find the choices that she had been given. Something was seriously wrong. Suddenly the door opened and Alex threw the pad back on Matt's bunk. Steve had returned from the gym.

'What's up?' he asked, seeing the look on her face.

* * *

The next week passed in a flurry of activity, panic and intensive cramming. Several students had been to the academy's counselor and even more to the sickbay. All of their classes were now over, yet the amount of studying was going through the roof. The library was full at all times and it was almost impossible to spot a second year cadet walking around without a datapad or tricorder.

Alex hadn't mentioned what she had seen to anyone. She tried to bring it up several times, but something always stopped her. She didn't know if it was the fact that she'd have to tell Matt that she had invaded his privacy, or the fear of what he might say.

'Why would he choose the freighter over all those famous starships?' she thought as she looked over the master systems displays of several starships on her pad.

'It doesn't make sense.'

'What does?' Matthew asked from beside her. She had spoken it out loud.

'Ummm…' she tried to stall to give herself thinking time, 'these MSDs.'

She relaxed when he started explaining some of the schematics to her.

'He could have spent an entire year on one of these ships,' she couldn't get the thought out of her mind and didn't take in anything Matt was saying.

'You alright?' he suddenly asked. The concern was evident on his face. 'You should get some rest before the test,' he suggested. 'You still have a couple of hours.'

Alex nodded and got up. She didn't feel tired at all, but it was an opportunity to leave these dangerous waters.

* * *

'That wasn't so bad,' Steven said optimistically. They had just left the examination room, where they had taken the written part of their exam.

'I guess that was to be expected,' Matthew smiled, 'with all that Starfleet protocol Alex has been throwing our way.'

Steven and Matthew laughed, but stopped when Alex didn't join in.

'C'mon, what's the matter?' he asked. 'I saw you finish half an hour early.'

'I know but…' Alex muttered.

'I'm sure you did fine,' Matthew said assertively and gave Steve a meaningful look.

'Of course you did,' Steve added. 'Like Matt said, you were the one spurting all that Starfleet knowledge at us all week. Relax.'

'Exactly,' Matthew said conclusively, 'Now let's get something to eat before the practical.'

'But I…'

'You've done enough studying to last a lifetime Alex. And did I mention this wasn't a question?'

* * *

Alex couldn't concentrate on her food at all and was actually quite relieved when the announcement to assemble in the main transport room came.

The practical would take place on Starbase 001 in orbit of Earth because of the zero gravity training and piloting sections. Alex groaned when they were told all the cadets would be called in by ID number, meaning she would be one of the last to be called.

Almost the entire cargo bay had cleared up by the time Alex's turn came. Steven and Matthew had been one of the first to go in and must have finished by now. She wondered whether they had achieved the results they aimed for when she entered the first room. There was a schematic of a Type 9 shuttle with several malfunctions in the center, and a datapad lying on a table nearby.

'Here we go…' she thought.

* * *

Alex felt she had done really well on the first section of the practical. She had remembered everything Ryan had explained to her about EPS conduits and felt her analysis of the tachyon particle had sufficient depth, but when she entered the last room she knew something was wrong the moment she saw the medical tricorder on the table. A particularly gruesome sight met her when a hologram materialized before her.

* * *

'Tell him what you did,' Steven said, laughing hard several hours later.

'What?' Matthew said confusedly, 'What did she do?'

'And to think that I was worried whether I applied the correct amount of sedative and treated my guy's wound correctly,' Steve said, still laughing.

'Will somebody please tell me what's so funny?' Matt said, looking from an almost suffocating Steven to a particularly glum Alex.

'I called up the EMH, ok?' Alex buried her face in her lap.

'You what?' Matthew said, suppressing a laugh in the spirit of friendship.

* * *

Alex looked away from the girl lying on the floor of the room. She had severe plasma burns all over her hands and was shaking in shock.

Without looking at then girl she picked up the tricorder, but she simply couldn't do it. She couldn't take the sight of all that blood. She sunk to her knees as images of failure started flashing through her mind.

But then a thought came. A crazy thought. 'Computer, activate the EMH program,' she said suddenly.

'State the nature of the medical emergency,' the holographic doctor approached Alex.

* * *

'… and he simply took the tricorder and treated her,' Alex repeated what she had told Steven earlier, hoping Matt's reaction would be a little bit more sensitive.

Matthew stared at her for a few seconds, not sure how he should react.

'Well, it did work,' he said finally, 'if it wasn't one of the options the EMH wouldn't have appeared at all.'

'Will you stop worrying, Alex?' Steven said, no longer laughing. 'From what I heard, you did great. We ALL did great. It's over, we've done it…'

Alex looked at Matthew, wondering if he was going to mention that he had another test later that day, but he just gave her an encouraging smile.

'Well, I must admit it was pretty funny,' she resigned.

'Pretty funny?' Steven smirked. 'It was hilarious…' and soon after they were all laughing together.

* * *

A couple of hours later, the joyous mood had dissipated as they awaited their results back in their dormitory. Even though they all felt they had definitely made their mark, it was impossible to completely dismiss that small hint of doubt.

Suddenly they heard an announcement and their dormitory console lit up. Alex rushed to it immediately while the two guys remained on their bunks. It was their usual routine. After Alex had raced them to the console and screamed out their results the first few times during their first year, they got used to it and stopped trying.

But this time she didn't shout out in triumph. She just stood there and didn't say a word.

'What is it?' Steven said, his expression falling.

'Alex?' Matthew said as she turned back, no hint of this being some kind of joke.

'You made it Steve,' she said in a painfully calm voice. 'And so did I.'

Steve turned to Matthew in shock. 'Matt?'

'His result isn't here…' Alex said slowly.

'What does that mean?' Steven said confusedly.

'Look I'm sure it's nothing,' Matt said with a weak smile. 'I was told that might happen.'

Alex gave him a piercing look. He wasn't going to tell them. But why?

'I'm sure it's just a technical problem,' Steven said optimistically.

'Ok, that's enough,' Alex thought to herself. She took a deep breath and was about to ask Matthew what all those starships on his list and that bridge officer test meant when someone burst into their dorm.

'I can't believe it,' Ryan was positively bouncing up and down with joy, 'I got it, the USS Chicago. The only starship on the list!'

Alex looked at Matthew again, but he didn't react in any way to that either.

'It's a small Norway Class vessel,' he continued beaming.

'Nice one,' Steven and Matt said in unison. 'Congratulations!'

'How come none of us didn't have it on our lists?' Alex said, looking at Matthew rather than Ryan yet again.

'Only one frigate was chosen by random for this year, and seeing as it's a science vessel…'

'It was only available to Science candidates,' Matthew finished for him.

'But you're…' Steve began.

'In Engineering, I know. That's why I'm so happy. My results were so high Admiral Andrews made an exception.'

'You came top of the class?' Matthew said appraisingly. 'I told you…'

'Not exactly,' Ryan turned to Steven and the joy seemed to leave him slightly. 'Second…'

'After Kajsa,' Steven said in comprehension.

'Sorry,' Ryan said, reverting back to his usual shy self.

'What for?' Steven muttered. 'I knew there wasn't much of a chance we'd end up on the same ship.'

'You'll see her in fourth year,' Alex said encouragingly, momentarily forgetting her troubles. She had been afraid of being separated from Matthew herself and knew what it must have been like for Steven.

The mood fell slightly after that and everyone seemed to forget about the incident with Matthew's score. Everybody except Alex, that is. Ryan went back to his dorm at around ten and when they all decided to call it a night, Alex joined the others in climbing onto her bunk, but she didn't go to sleep.

After waiting for over an hour, she began thinking that all of this was foolish, but it was at that moment that Matthew quietly got up from his bunk, looked around, and left the dormitory.

Alex turned over on her bunk and a tear slid down her cheek…

* * *

The next morning, Matthew had triumphantly declared that he had in fact scored remarkably high and all three of them had celebrated their spending another year together, but Alex's heart wasn't in it. She couldn't stop thinking about what it could be that Matthew was hiding from them. But as before, she couldn't get herself to challenge him about it.

The days passed and the day of their summer parting was getting closer and closer, yet still she couldn't get herself to say anything. She considered talking to Steven, but he'd probably dismiss it in a heartbeat. Finally, she decided that if she couldn't speak to any of her friends, she'd have to look to the source of all the trouble.

* * *

'I'm afraid I can't tell you Miss Hudson,' the Admiral told her in a tone that made it clear that the topic wasn't up for discussion. 'Although I must admit that I am surprised that you haven't gone to your friend first.'

'I…' Alex began. 'I have my reasons.'

'I'm sure you do,' Andrews nodded. 'But I'm afraid he wouldn't have told you anyways.

'Hey,' Alex said angrily. 'He tells me everything,' she was getting protective.

'You misunderstand me,' he smiled and, putting an arm around her, led her to the door. 'He's under orders to keep it secret.'

'Oh,' Alex nodded and made her way out of the office. 'Sorry,' she mumbled, suddenly ashamed of her outburst.

'I'd appreciate if you didn't mention any of this to anyone else.'

'But why?' Alex wheeled around, but stopped herself.

'Mr. Meyers has enough to worry about without being accused of preferential treatment.'

'Is that what it is?'

'That's enough Cadet,' Andrews said firmly.

'I need to know sir,' she said desperately, knowing she was overstepping countless bounds.

The admiral sighed. 'I'm sure you know that Mr. Meyers is an exceptional student. He has merited the attention of many of our most acclaimed captains ever since he set foot in Starfleet Academy.'

Alex stared at him in shock.

'They… requested… his services,' he said, carefully choosing his words.

Yet again, Alex's jaw dropped.

'Captain Riker has been here with the Titan only last week, asking how he was doing.'

'But… why?' Alex said.

'I think I've said too much already young miss.'

'Thank you sir,' Alex said sincerely. 'I promise I won't tell anyone.'

'Promise?' Andrews laughed slightly. 'You have been ordered not to.'

'Oh…'

* * *

That year's parting for the summer was particularly emotional, since many of the cadets wouldn't be seeing each other for an entire year.

Matthew and Steven had planned a particularly wet 'going away' party for Alex when they asked Ryan to modify the environmental controls in their dorm to make it snow from the fire suppression unit. The only problem was that after a few seconds, the snow on the floor had melted and turned their dorm into a miniature pool.

The four of them had laughed all the way to the tram and even there, heads turned and people muttered, wondering what had happened that was so funny.

That all changed however, when they reached the shuttle bay. They just stood there until Steven broke the silence.

'Ok, see ya,' he said quickly and started towards his shuttle.

'Oh, no you don't,' Alex jumped onto his back and grabbed him around the neck.

'Heeey, gerroff me,' he said, laughing.

Matthew and Ryan laughed as they watched the two wrestle.

'Ok, ok, I give up,' Steven waved his arms around. 'I'll stay for the awkward goodbyes.'

'You're damn right you will,' Alex smirked.

'If you're done, your shuttles are leaving,' Matthew pointed out.

'Your shuttles? You aren't going?' Ryan asked confusedly.

'Where would I go?' Matt said with a smile, but Alex noticed the slightly sad tone in which he had said it. 'Besides, I'll have all those messages from you to keep me occupied,' and this time he smiled sincerely.

'Bye Matt,' Alex said and gave him a large hug.

'I'm going to miss you,' she thought and smiled when he gave her a gentle squeeze and patted her back.


	5. 1x05 Emotions In Motion

Episode 1x05 – Emotions in Motion

Matt looked down upon the magnificent sight of Earth from orbit in deep thought. But even the beautiful oceans below and the flurry of small ships coming up from the surface couldn't remove the thoughts that had plagued him for the whole summer. Had he given up the opportunity of a lifetime? When he had made the decision to pass up the prestigious assignments he had been offered by Admiral Andrews, it all seemed so simple, but as the time passed, doubt began to creep in.

His friends had always meant a lot to him, but sooner or later, he knew their paths would have to separate. As Starfleet Officers, they'd go where duty would call, so why had he given up the chance to spend a year on one of the many famous ships he had been offered, just to delay the inevitable?

He felt a small tremor and turned to the other side of the docking bay where a transport ship had arrived. A fairly large crowd had gathered there to greet the third year cadets returning from their summer break. Normally, he'd have joined in, talked to his classmates for what may be the last time in a long while, but he really wasn't in the mood. He glanced from left to right, looking for any trace of Alex's short-cut hair in the crowd, but just as he was about to turn back to the porthole, he noticed somebody was looking at him. It was a beautiful girl with shoulder-length coal black hair and the prettiest look Matt had ever seen. She had very sharp features, grayish eyes and was wearing dark lipstick. Her brow furrowed and she turned around quickly, realizing he had noticed she was looking.

He didn't know why, but something inside Matt forced him into action. He rushed to the edge of the crowd and started pushing through. He could see her black hair moving away from him through the crowd.

'Get out of the way,' he thought in frustration. He had always hated people that clogged up corridors or would stand and talk right in the middle of a doorway, but this was too much. Just as he emerged on the other side, he saw her disappear behind a door.

He stared at the door, wondering whether he should follow when someone nudged him in the side.

* * *

Alex paced behind the airlock nervously. What was she going to say to him? She didn't have time to write to him the whole summer. Would he be really angry?

'Come on!' she thought as the docking procedures prolonged.

Finally the airlock opened and revealed a crowd of about a hundred people waiting outside. Some exclaimed as they reunited with their friends, others groaned in disappointment, but nobody seemed to be moving out of the way. Alex sighed and started pushing her way through.

Suddenly, she caught sight of Matthew. He seemed to be pushing through the crowd from the other side and her face lit up and stomach gave a flip. He was just a few meters away now, looking at her with a very strange look. He looked almost desperate.

Just a couple more bodies… and… she was about to shout 'hiya' and throw her arms around his neck when he passed right by her.

She stared into the crowd in confusion as he made his way to the edge. Disappointed, she followed, feeling foolish for thinking he'd make such an effort just to see her.

When she finally emerged from the crowed she noticed he was looking at some door leading to the Mess Hall.

'Yeah, it's nice to see you too,' she said in a hurt tone, but he didn't even turn around.

'Hello? Earth to Matthew, anyone there?' Was this some kind of joke?

She opened her mouth to speak again, but then just poked a finger in his side.

'Wh… uh… Heeey, Alex!' he finally turned and realized she was there.

He immediately transformed, the strange look left his face and he gave Alex a large hug.

'Sorry, didn't see you there,' he said in his usual optimistic way as if that explained everything.

* * *

'It was nothing,' Matt said for the fifth time as Alex pestered him. They were walking to the temporary quarters they were assigned. 'Want a tour of the station?' he asked, trying to change the subject.

'I've been here before,' she said dismissively.

'C'mon, I'm sorry. There was this…'

'Girl,' she finished for him in a very cold tone. 'What else?'

'And what's wrong with that?' he asked confusedly. He felt a bit ashamed that he hadn't noticed her getting off the freighter, he went there to see her after all, but what was with the third degree?

'Oh nothing,' she said and started fidgeting with the strap on her bag. 'Forget it.'

He eyed her intently, wondering what was going on. Did something happen?

'Everything alright during the summer?' he asked, suddenly very protective. 'You didn't say anything over subspace.'

* * *

Alex sighed. Would he never notice? 'No, nothing happened.'

'C'mon tell me,' he persisted. 'If there's something wrong, I want to know. You won't get any replicated candy from me for a week if you don't tell me.' He pouted his lips and put an arm around her.

Alex felt herself blush slightly and the memory of that weird incident in the docking bay was erased. Things like this made her like him so much. He could be so protective of his friends. Sometimes she though he'd worry more about them than his own problems. Suddenly, she remembered what had troubled her all summer. Was that what he was doing? Giving up his career for his friends?

'Alright, no candy for you,' he said in a mock-angry voice and removed his arm around her shoulder. 'Bad, bad girl.'

She frowned slightly, missing the contact. It was obvious he was trying to cheer her up, but did he have to do it this way?

'C'mon, that's blackmail,' she protested.

'I'm a very evil person,' he said with a smirk.

'Alright, alright, I'll tell you…'

* * *

_Starfleet academy, the largest non-commercial complex on Earth and only the second man-made object that can be seen from orbit, is considered by many to be the greatest achievement of mankind. It produces countless talents each year to join the best of the best in the United Federation of Planets: Starfleet._

_With the recent threats of the Borg and Dominion, and the weakened state of the Federation, that need for excellence has become ever more dire. It will be up to the next generation to protect Earth, to protect the paradise that humanity has had over five millennia to perfect.

* * *

_

'I didn't know your grandmother was sick,' Matt said in a comforting tone, Alex's head in his lap, and stroking her hair in their quarters.

'And she was getting better too…' Alex said quietly. 'I'm sorry, I just overreacted, and I've been kinda soft lately.' She felt really bad for lying to him.

'It's alright,' Matthew said softly. 'I shouldn't have missed you back there.'

The guilt was overwhelming Alex. She wasn't being fair. It felt so good to have him comfort her, but it wasn't right. She was being selfish. Should she tell him the truth? This was all too much. Tears welled up in her eyes and she struggled to keep her emotions in check.

'Alex?' Matthew asked worriedly. 'Don't cry sweetie. I'm sure it will be alright.'

But the comforting words only made it harder for her.

'I…' she got up quickly. 'I have to go,' and she rushed to the door. It opened automatically and she ran out, almost colliding with a tall figure that was standing outside, just about to ring.

'What happened?' Steve asked, looking over his shoulder as Alex disappeared behind the corner of the corridor.

* * *

'I've never seen her so upset,' Matthew was pacing the room, not sure what he was supposed to do.

'You say her grandmother is really sick?' Steve said in his usual calm tone. Hadn't he seen Alex's grandmother on subspace only last week? She only had one, so it had to be her.

'I completely overlooked her on the docking bay too,' he said worried. 'There was this girl that…' Matthew continued to speak but Steven didn't need to hear any more. He had suspected that Alex felt more than just friendship for Matt for a long time.

'I think I should speak with her,' he said, an idea coming to mind.

'Why you?' Matthew asked.

'He really is clueless,' Steven thought, but felt there was more to this than just hidden feelings.

'You've had your go, now it's my turn,' he said and put a hand on Matt's shoulder. 'I know that it's more likely that Admiral Janeway will command another Intrepid class vessel into the badlands than hope you'll stop worrying about your friend, but try it now.'

'And open your eyes,' he said to himself. 'You'll do us all a favor.'

* * *

'I don't know what you're talking about!' Alex said defiantly when Steven had finished his speech. 'My grandmother…'

'This isn't about your grandmother Alex and you and I both know it.'

'I…' she began.

'I know,' Steve said in an uncharacteristically soft voice. 'You don't have to tell me.'

'No you don't,' Alex said with a sob.

'You love him.'

Alex turned to look at him, her eyes red with tears.

'I know it must be hard…' he continued, but she interrupted him.

'I've… I've been in…' she sighed and started again. 'Those feelings have been there from ever since we got landed in the same dorm. I can handle it.'

'Can you?' Steven said doubtfully. 'You know what he's like: a flock of girls around him the whole time. How long do you think you can handle him coming back each week from a date with a different girl… that isn't you?

'I've seen him with plenty of girls. He doesn't love them…' she said defensively. 'But that's not the point,' she realized Steve still thought this was only about her feelings.

'And what is?'

'I can't tell you,' she said, her voice very weak. 'But it's making me lie to him. And that's what I can't handle.'

'I thought that was because of your…'

'That too… But this is different. It's one thing hiding your feelings and hoping that he will some day feel the same, but another to fear what will happen if he ever found out about the other thing.'

Steven frowned, wondering what could be so serious that Alex couldn't even tell her best friend about.

'Come on, lets go back,' he pulled her up and put an arm around her.

'You won't tell…' she began, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

'Of course not,' Steven smiled. 'That's between you two.'

'Thanks Steve,' she said sincerely.

'That's what friends are for.'

* * *

When Alex and Steve arrived at the quarters they were met by another familiar face. Ryan was standing outside, talking to Matthew.

'Look who I found lurking around,' Matthew said triumphantly.

'Hi guys,' Ryan said timidly.

While Steve greeted Ryan, Matthew looked towards Alex and their eyes met.

'You ok?' he mouthed. Alex smiled and nodded.

'So, when's your starship arriving?' Alex asked Ryan. 'And did I mention I was very jealous?' The trio was back to its usual joking self and a lot of the tension seemed to leave them all.

'Well…' Ryan began and looked at Matthew pleadingly.

'Let me explain,' Matthew said with a wink.

'Explain what?' Steve pitched in.

'Ryan here and about forty others will be joining us on the freighter.'

'What?' Alex looked shocked. 'I can't believe you'd give up such a great assignment!' Without wanting, she looked at Matthew again and their eyes met. She couldn't make anything out of what she'd seen and quickly turned back to Ryan, hoping he didn't realize she knew he'd done exactly that.

'Wait a moment,' Steve said, his analytical side coming out. 'I thought only seven of us were assigned to Captain Harris' freighter. I'm sure I'd have noticed if the list got quadrupled.'

'Sorry to disappoint you, Steve, but Ryan and the others aren't on the list. They're not part of the crew…'

'Now I'm confused,' Alex said looking from Matt to Ryan and back. 'C'mon, spill it.'

'You know the first two week long trip?' Matthew explained.

'That didn't have any cargo?' Steven asked.

'Yup, that one.'

'Aaah,' Alex said triumphantly. 'We're carrying the other cadets.'

'Nice to see I'm not spending an entire year with a pair of trolls,' Matthew smiled. 'We're taking Ryan and the two other third years that made the Chicago and a whole bunch of first years for some kind of trip.'

'That's not fair,' Alex pouted her lips. 'We never got a trip when we joined the Academy.'

'I wouldn't be too jealous,' Matthew smiled. 'I suspect they're going to be going through the works... Steve?' he asked his friend who was looking slightly absent.

'Oh,' Alex smirked. With all of his previous talk about feelings, she couldn't help notice Steve was just as unsure about them when they were his own.

'What am I missing?' Now Matt was the one who was confused.

'Wasn't Kajsa top of the class?' Alex said in a matter-of-factly tone.

'She was,' surprisingly, it was Ryan who had spoken. 'But I heard she asked for reassignment.'

'Oh, sorry,' Alex said, now feeling foolish.

'She told me she wanted to be with her brother,' Ryan said apologetically.

'What?' Matt, Steven and Alex said in unison.

'Wh… what did I say?' Ryan said shyly.

'Niklas is the Ops cadet assigned to our freighter,' Steve said in disbelief. He suddenly looked overjoyed.

'That's great,' Alex said, back to enjoying teasing Steve now that she knew she couldn't really hurt him with this kind of news hanging in the air.

'Looks like the entire gang is gonna be there,' Matthew said, joining in the good mood.'

* * *

After they had all caught up on their summer experiences, the group decided to go out and try to look for the rest of the third year cadets that they'd be spending the next year with. Ryan met the two other cadets from the Chicago in the Mess Hall and only after Matthew threatened to throw him out of the airlock, did he actually go over and say hello to the two girls.

They could see him shaking as he made his way across the hall. One of them, a very tall Vulcan, immediately stood up in greeting, which probably wasn't the best move. She quite literally towered over Ryan's barely five feet, not helping the shy engineer's disposition in any way.

He looked back to Matt and the others, who motioned with their hands and struggled not to laugh.

'H… Hi,' he said meekly.

'Hello Mr. Moore,' she said politely.

Ryan's eyes widened. Was she expecting him to know her name? How stupid of him, there were only two other Cadets on his list and he didn't even looked over their names.

The other girl giggled and Ryan reacted by surveying his feet.

'I'm sorry, I…' he began.

'T'Vral,' the Vulcan said kindly. 'And this is Moreena,' who nodded in acknowledgement. 'She is a Betazoid.' There was the tiniest hint of annoyance in her voice that nobody noticed.

Ryan's eyes widened.

'I… I have to go…' he was restraining himself from running away from the room.

'Understandable,' T'Vral said, looking at the empath. 'Please stop doing that.'

'Sorry,' Moreena said innocently. 'I didn't mean to.'

* * *

After they had reassured Ryan that he wasn't the most pathetic creature in the universe, they decided to visit the Johanssons. They only had a few hours before the freighter would arrive and it made much more sense to go and see the cadets they already knew than try to make new friends in such a short time.

Matthew and Alex talked to Niklas, who they didn't know as well as his sister, while Steve and Kajsa sat in a very uncomfortable silence. It seemed that the two were just as shocked to find out they'd be on the same ship as the trio had been.

Matthew found out that Niklas was a holosuite ice-hockey fan and that provided lots of interesting conversation.

'So they really play this sport on the ice?' he said, his interest peaked. 'And it was invented on Earth? I'd have thought a cold planet like Andoria or Breen, but Canada?'

'Yeah, the game isn't played as much these days, but there still is an inter-planetary league that includes Earth and Andoria.'

'You're from what used to be Scandinavia right?' Alex asked, not that interested in the sport itself.

'Yeah, Sweden,' he smiled and got up, removing a picture of his home town from a drawer.

'Beautiful,' Alex looked over the town that looked so much unlike the technologically advanced cities she had been used to.

'We're from a small town, never figured we'd some day be in Starfleet. Scared us to death at first, to tell you the truth' he gave a nervous laugh. 'Still kind of does,' he looked at his sister subconsciously.

She was sitting opposite of Steven who had finally broken the silence on the other side of the room.

'Why did you give up the Chicago?' he asked, both surprised but also curious.

The freckled redhead shrugged and didn't answer.

'Something wrong?' he asked.

'Don't worry Steve,' Niklas said from the other side of the room. 'She just hasn't forgiven you for passing out when you were finally alone together,' he laughed.

'Hey, that's not true,' Kajsa protested stubbornly. 'And you were there as well, you know.'

'So? I was tied up, remember?'

'But you were looking,' she frowned but then froze as the other looked at her.

Matthew and Alex exchanged looks. 'I think it's time for us to go,' they nodded to Niklas. 'Those two have a lot to talk about.'

Niklas laughed again, 'Yeah, they do.'

'Do I get any say in this?' Steven asked.

'No,' Kajsa said and before everyone had even left the room, kissed him on the cheek.

'Thanks for what you did for me back then,' she smiled.

* * *

Nobody was too surprised when Steven and Kajsa joined them in the docking bay a few hours later, hands linked with big smiles on their faces.

'Finally,' Niklas said with a smirk. 'You can't imagine how long I've waited to be rid of all that Steven-worship.'

'Hey,' Kajsa pouted.

'And when were you going to tell me about that?' Steven smiled at her.

'Never,' she smiled back.

'Well…' Matthew began.

'Don't you dare!' Steven turned to him and everybody laughed.

'It's safe to say that it wasn't one sided,' Matthew said with a smirk.

'It's here!' Alex said suddenly and everybody turned. The freighter was approaching the station on thrusters.

'Whoa,' Steven said in awe.

It was a non-Starfleet design, probably from one of the border planets that had been integrated into the fleet when the planet joined the Federation. It had a triangular shape with a pointed front, the two warp nacelles attached to the bottom. What impressed Matt and the others most was the fact that the nacelles were red. This suggested that the ship probably came from Klingon or Lyran areas of space, where this technology had evolved. The hull of the ship was also quite different from the usual Starfleet vessel. It was a brownish yellow with no distinct deck separation, just a geometric, smooth design.

They watched the ship pass through the massive bay doors and into the station, then moved to the other side of the bay to wait for it to dock from the inside. This station design had been around for over a hundred years and had become very popular, since it served as both a means of hiding the number of ships in the sector and allowed for extensive repairs in a safer environment. Especially since the Dominion Wars and the trouble with the Romulans, Starfleet had to resort to more elusive tactics, such as hiding the true state of their fleet. Few would attack a Stafleet outpost if it could house a pair of Galaxy Class starships, but in fact, the constant state of conflict had stretched the fleet quite thin. Although it was planned that some of the smaller combat refitted ships would return to their usual specialization of exploration or research, circumstances simply didn't allow for it since every hand was needed to protect the struggling largest power in the Alpha Quadrant.

They felt a slight tremor as the ship docked and a group of about a dozen middle-aged men came through the hatch.

* * *

'So, what did you think?' Matthew asked as he Alex and Steve started gathering the few things they had unpacked during their short stay at the station.

'About the crew?' Steven asked, carefully placing his weights in the backpack. 'Seemed alright.'

'Yeah, I thought so too,' Matt agreed. 'Considering they've spent most of their long lives stuck on a freighter.' He put emphasis on the word 'long', seeing as the entire crew seemed to be over forty and some a lot more than that.

'I'd have thought you'd be disappointed,' Alex said with a strange gleeful look on her face.

'Why's that Alex?'

'No girls,' she said and there was a slight hint of satisfaction in her voice that mirrored the look she was giving him.

'There are plenty of girls from the academy going along. D'you see that Vulcan with Ryan?' I wonder if there's something going on…'

'Is that all you can think about?' Alex crossed her arms and her joyful look turned into a glare.

'Hey, you brought it up, remember?' Matt said defensively. 'What's with you lately?'

'Have you seen my boxing gloves?' Steven asked quickly, steering the conversation away from dangerous waters, while giving Alex a meaningful look.

'I think you left them in the sonic shower when you were getting changed,' Alex mouthed a thank-you for letting her know she was being too obvious.

When Steven returned with his boxing gloves, Alex and Matt were already climbing onto their bunks, but Matthew stopped as though in deep thought.

'You realize this is probably the last night we're going to sleep together,' Alex let out a muffled cough and Matt continued, 'without the constant hum of a warp engine?'

'And here I was thinking you were about to say something meaningful,' Steven laughed.

'Funny, coming from you,' Matthew joked.

Alex joined in the laughter. 'I don't even know why you're telling it to Steven, he'd sleep through planetary bombardment.'

'Ok, when you're done laughing at my expense,' Steven tucked the gloves away and climbed onto his bunk, 'I'm going to call it an night.'

* * *

The next morning, they each took a sonic shower, gathered their bags and with a final goodbye to Earth, the Academy and Starbase 001, made way to the docking bay.

Ryan was already waiting for them just outside the bay's doors and greeted them in his usual rather shy manner.

'Um, hi guys,' he muttered.

'You could have gone in without us you know,' Matt teased, but put an arm around the shoulder of the short engineer.

'Yeah… right,' Ryan muttered again.

They walked through the door and noticed that the two girls who would be accompanying Ryan on the Chicago were standing right outside the docking port leading to the freighter. One of them, the Betazoid that had teased Ryan excessively during their 'getting to know each other' party of the previous night, was waving at him with a smirk on her face.

'Oh,' Matt smiled, realizing why Ryan hadn't gone inside. 'You do know that you're going to have to get used to them you know?'

'I know,' Ryan resigned. 'But do I have to do it right now?'

Matt and the others laughed.

'Hello girls,' Matt said as they neared the two girls. 'You the first to arrive?'

'Three have already entered,' the Vulcan T'Vral answered, while her friend looked them each over intently.

'So, are we going in or not?' Alex said impatiently as the girl's gaze lingered on her.

'We haven't even introduced ourselves,' Matt pointed out.

'I'm Moreena,' the Betazoid girl responded quickly, holding her arm out to Matt. 'Will you show me around?' she said innocently and locked eyes with Alex.

'Matt has to report to the bridge,' Alex stood right between them and glared at the red-haired girl.

'Sorry,' Matt shrugged and, stretching an arm around Alex, shook her hand, completely oblivious to the outburst of jealousy.

'Let's go,' Alex said to Matt and the others, still glaring at the redhead.

'See you around,' Moreena called after Matt as they disappeared inside the porthole.

'You have done it again. How many times have I told you already?' T'Vral said in an the emotionless and calm tone only Vulcans were capable of.

'About a hundred times?' Moreena rolled her eyes.

'Sixty-Two.'

'You have no sense of humor at all…'

'Do you find disrupting human mating rituals entertaining?

'So what if I do? Besides, what did I do that was so bad?'

'Humans value their privacy. Their feelings,' T'Vral said simply.

'And what would you know about that? You're a Vulcan. You HAVE no feelings…'

* * *

'I don't like her,' Alex said irritably, as they made their way to the bridge.

'She was just trying to be friendly,' Matthew pointed out, not sure what was bothering Alex so much.

Alex opened her mouth to retort but stopped herself, realizing that Moreena was just trying to provoke her… and that it worked. Suddenly, she felt foolish for being so easily manipulated into showing her feelings for Matthew. Besides, the girl would be leaving with Ryan in a few weeks anyways. A fact she suddenly found very pleasing.

The interior of the ship was just as unusual as its exterior. It certainly wasn't of Starfleet design. The entire vessel, both exterior and interior, was strongly influenced by triangular motifs. Not only the consoles and portholes, but also the corridors were triangular, which made it quite hard to walk in any other way than single-file. On the other hand, the warm browns and oranges would be a nice change to the hospital-like interiors of Starfleet facilities.

The freighter only had three decks. The main deck on which most of the crew quarters, recreation areas and cargo bays were, an upper deck with the bridge and transporter room and a lower deck comprising of main engineering and antimatter storage. Both the lower and upper decks were accessed through hatches on the main deck.

When they reached the access hatch to the lower deck, they wished Ryan good luck and when he had disappeared in engineering, continued in the direction of the bridge.

As they were passing the medical bay, something told Matthew to look inside. When he turned his head, he stopped abruptly.

'Hey!' Steven had bumped into him from behind.

Inside the med-bay, a black-haired girl was looking right at Matthew.

'What is it?' Steven said, looking over his shoulder.

'Just a familiar face,' Matt said dismissively, but there was a definite spring in his step for the rest of the way to the bridge.

* * *

'I thought I made it clear I didn't want any of you kids down here!' the elderly chief engineer shouted at Ryan, who was still a few ladder steps above ground and unsure whether he should continue or hurry back up. He looked around at the man who could have been in his seventies or even eighties and the fear on his face must have had an effect because he grudgingly motioned for Ryan to come down. However, as soon as Ryan had touched ground, the man started shouting again.

'Just stay where I can see you and don't go touching anything!'

Ryan opened his mouth, but no words came out.

'This is my engine, I've worked on it ever since I was little and no matter what the captain says about the benefit of having young Starfleet cadets on board, I want none of that in engineering,' he sounded like he was talking to himself rather than Ryan, who was extremely relived when T'Vral climbed down the ladder above.

When the old man saw that another student had invaded on his territory, he began shouting again, but it turned out that T'Vral wasn't just a great engineer that came third in their class after Kajsa and Ryan, but also well versed in diplomacy. After a few minutes, the old man that had introduced himself as 'Nonyabuzniz' (Ryan didn't find it necessary to point it out to T'Vral, that Nonyabuzniz wasn't a name) had reluctantly agreed to let them stay and watch him work.

* * *

Matt climbed up the ladder and looked around the bridge. It was empty all but for the captain, who turned to look at him with a broad smile on his face. Very much like the rest of the ship, the bridge too was influenced greatly by triangular designs. Matt couldn't make out any distinct station, but there was a large triangular console with its tip pointing towards the back of the bridge like a large 'V' with three seats on both sides and the captain's seat in the middle.

'Welcome,' the captain said, beaming, as Steven and Alex emerged from the deck below. He got up and, ignoring their salutes, walked towards them with his hand outstretched.

The three cadets were slightly startled by the friendly greeting and continued to stand in attention, but the man who seemed to be around his early fifties simply waved them away.

'At ease,' he said finally, when they still didn't respond. 'Can't remember the last time I've said that,' he joked. 'This isn't a military ship. Regulations and standard procedure aren't what make a baby like this fly.'

The cadets relaxed, but still watched him intently, determined to give a good first impression.

'I take it you know the flight plan?' he asked in his friendly voice.

'Yes, sir,' Matt said quickly, still unable to adjust to the uncharacteristically relaxed atmosphere on the bridge.

'Then you know that before delivering our precious palladium cargo to the oxygen-deprived world of Antexx, we first have to drop off our other guests from the Academy.' They all nodded in unison. 'You will be responsible for the first year cadets while they are here. This will mean, mostly, making sure they stay out of engineering. Besides that, they are free to roam the ship. My chief engineer doesn't like visitors… of any kind.'

The three cadets looked at each other, realizing that Ryan was probably not having the best of times.

'So, back to our flight plan,' he smiled, realizing he had strayed from the topic. 'Traveling at Warp 6, we will rendezvous with the USS Chicago at Station 024 fourteen light years away in...' he deliberately stretched out the last word, allowing them time to think.'

'Thirteen days and about five hours,' Alex said, living up to her reputation of a good Conn Officer.

'Very good. Thirteen days, four hours and forty-eight minutes exactly,' he smiled. 'Which will give us a few hours to spare before our two-week ETA.'

'Once we drop off the three cadets assigned to the Chicago, we will continue another three light years to Epsilon Indi, where the rest of our passengers will get off.'

'From then on, it will only be you, me, my crew and a 156 LY ride at maximum warp to Antexx. The whole trip should take about four months there and another four back, giving you plenty of time to gain first-hand experience in the field and still return on schedule for your final year at the academy.'

'As for your duties, you will observe my bridge officers at work and assist them when asked. You may ask questions whenever you like as long as it doesn't disrupt the smooth running of this vessel. My crew has been hauling cargo for almost twenty years and believe me when I tell you: they'll appreciate the distraction.'

Matt smiled, wondering if asking a question now would somehow disrupt the running of a stationary freighter.

'What is it, son?' the captain asked.

'Just wondering why you didn't come to the party yesterday,' even when he said it, he already felt silly.

'I never leave my ship, son. I'd even sleep on the bridge if my night-shift crew didn't complain about my snoring.'

The three cadets, now fully at ease, laughed and the captain joined in. Before the laughter had died down the hatch opened and Kajsa, Niklas and another cadet Matthew only vaguely remembered from one of his 'command' classes climbed in.

'Looks like everyone is here,' the captain beamed at the newcomers.

'I thought there were seven of us assigned to this ship,' Matt said confusedly.

'Right you are Mr. Meyers, but I believe our intern from Starfleet Medical will undoubtedly find what our doctor has to say much more interesting.'

After discussing several topics such as the use of palladium as a means of storage of tremendous volumes of oxygen, or why it was impossible to replicate larger amounts of such complex metals due to the strain on the bulk material from which objects are replicated, they were joined by the rest of the bridge crew of the freighter.

'Most of you have met during yesterday's party, but I always felt that it's a good idea to have a good old stand-up introduction. For this, I apologize to my crew. I'm sure the cadets are used to this from some of their classes.'

'Who's going to go first?' he looked around hopefully, only to see a group of very confused faces. Some seemed to be wondering whether he was serious, others clearly thinking the captain must have finally gone mad.

'I guess I'll start,' he continued unabashed. 'I'm Captain Terry Mayweather. My family has been hauling cargo as far back as the Warp 2 days and I was born on a freighter very similar to this one on a flight between Lyra III and Earth.'

When the captain had finished talking, the rest of the bridge still had no idea what to think of the somewhat childish and silly scene.

'So, who wants to go next?' he asked enthusiastically.

'I guess…' Matt began but the unfamiliar cadet interrupted him.

'My name is Jaroslav Svoboda, Stafleet Cadet third class…' he droned on in a formal tone that may have been appropriate when reporting to a senior Starfleet officer, but seemed slightly humorous considering what it had followed..

'I like this guy already,' Matt said to Steve sarcastically.

* * *

'Now that we are all properly introduced, I think it's time to get under way.

The six officers immediately responded and took their seats on either side of the captain's seat. It was clear that behind the slightly eccentric exterior, he had a lot of respect amongst the crew, who had served with him for longer than the cadets were old.

When the captain didn't sit down, some of them turned to see what was going on, but he was looking at Matthew instead.

'Mr. Meyers, have you ever piloted a ship out of spacedock?'

For a moment, Matt wasn't sure if this was another of the captain's jokes.

'Never, sir,' he said calmly, trying not to sound too enthusiastic.

'Well then, take her out, Mr. Meyers,' he moved aside and Matt heard a distinctive snort from Jaroslav, which brought a whole new level of enjoyment into the moment.

'Aye sir,' Matt said and sat down in the captain's seat.

'For everything there is a first time, Cadet,' he said and Matt heard another snort, 'Don't you agree Mr. Svoboda?'


	6. 1x06 Red Alert Part I

Episode 1x06 – Red Alert Part I

'I'm really starting to hate that guy,' Matthew said as he and the others sat in the mess hall a week into their journey.

'You've been saying that all week,' Steve pointed out.

'I know, but he's REALLY starting to annoy me,' Matt persisted.

'We don't like him either, but he's really just hurting himself by constantly trying to compete with you,' Alex said encouragingly.

The door to the mess hall opened and Cyanne came in. She walked to the replicator and ordered something, glancing in Matt's direction for a split-second, but then sat in a seat on the opposite end of the room.

'I'm starting to think she's scared of me or something,' Matt said, looking up from his meal.

'Cyanne?' Alex asked, looking around and waving at the dark-haired girl, who returned the wave. 'No, she's really nice.'

'So why is she always looking at me?' Matt thought. 'And whenever I try to talk to her she finds some reason to rush off…' He didn't know why it bothered him so much that she didn't seem to even want to talk to him.

'She is,' Ryan said surprisingly. 'I was at the infirmary with one of the first years and she was really friendly.'

'Speaking of friendly,' Matt pounced at the opportunity to change the subject. 'What about T'Vral?'

'What about her?' Ryan said a bit too quickly.

'Nothin',' Matt said with a satisfied smirk.

'And the chief engineer?' Steven said over his ractagino. 'Making you wish we'd reach Starbase 024 a week early?' They'd all heard about the old man's reluctance to let anyone below the age of thirty anywhere near 'his' engine.

'He actually has pretty good reasons to keep people away,' Ryan said, much more confident now that they had reached a topic he was comfortable in. 'He's made a couple of his own modifications to the warp engine. Even the engineers in Starfleet Command could probably learn something from him.'

'Not bad for a civilian,' Steve joined in. 'I wonder why he didn't join Starfleet.'

'Not everyone wants to be a soldier Steve,' Alex pointed out. 'Besides, these freighters need good crews just as much as Starfleet vessels do.'

Matt opened his mouth to add a comment of his own but noticed Cyanne was looking at him again.

'Ok, that's it, I'm going in,' he said, getting up.

'Good luck,' Alex said encouragingly, making Steven give her a meaningful, and thoroughly surprised, look.

'Hi there, I'm Matthew,' he said lightheartedly when he had reached her, placing his right foot on the bench opposite the dark haired nurse and leaning on it with his elbow. 'If you aren't all that busy I'd really like to get to kno…' but his sentence was cut short by a loud explosion and everybody was thrown portside.

The red lights indicating 'battle stations', came on almost immediately.

'Red Alert!' they heard the captain's voice over the intercom.

* * *

_Starfleet academy, the largest non-commercial complex on Earth and only the second man-made object that can be seen from orbit, is considered by many to be the greatest achievement of mankind. It produces countless talents each year to join the best of the best in the United Federation of Planets: Starfleet._

_With the recent threats of the Borg and Dominion, and the weakened state of the Federation, that need for excellence has become ever more dire. It will be up to the next generation to protect Earth, to protect the paradise that humanity has had over five millennia to perfect.

* * *

_

'All hands to battle stations. I repeat. All hands to battle stations. Senior officers to the bridge,' the urgency and desperation in the captain's voice, and the fact that it seemed to have lost all trace of its child-like optimism was an indication of the graveness of the situation.

Like the others, Matt had been launched towards the right end of the ship, but due to his unstable position, had toppled right over Cyanne during the blast. He now lay on top of her, something shiny and suspiciously similar to the knife Cyanne was using to cut her steak about a centimeter deep into his side. Ignoring the pain that was shooting up his side into his right shoulder, he tried to push himself up, but the moment he applied pressure onto his hand he collapsed again.

'Sorry,' he mumbled into her shoulder.

The girl didn't seem to be hurt, but for some reason lay completely rigid. Was she pretending not to be there? Matt took a deep breath, unable to completely ignore the strawberry scent of the girl's shampoo, and this time used his other arm to hoist himself up.

He glanced towards where his friends had only moments earlier sat and watched him approach Cyanne and a dozen arrows seemed to pierce his body.

Steve was holding a limp Alex in his arms and Ryan was sprawled across the floor, face-down.

'You have to go to the bridge,' Cyanne spoke to him for the first time. Matt would have much rather heard the beautiful voice that sounded like some musical instrument under different circumstances. He would have hung on her every word, but as it was, he could merely nod and use his good arm to help her get up.

When she was on her feet she noticed the red stain on his uniform and opened her mouth to apologize, but Matthew grabbed her hand and they were already half way to Steve and Alex by the time she had even formed the words in her mind.

'What's wrong with her?' Matthew said urgently, his voice breaking.

'Out cold,' Steven said in a forced voice.

'Ryan?' Matt asked, looking at the small engineer.

'I'm alright,' he said, getting to his feet slowly. The ship shook again and they all almost fell again.

'Steve, we have to get to the bridge,' Matt said with a new sense of urgency.

But Steven didn't move.

Matt was just as worried about Alex as Steven was, but no amount of worrying would help Alex.

'If we don't go now, many more people will get hurt,' Matt tried, but only when Cyanne offered to take her to sickbay, did he respond.

Steven set Alex down hesitantly, but when the ship rocked for a third time and Matthew darted towards the door, he followed.

They ran as fast as they could, only stopped to point a few shocked and worried first years to the medical bay, and after less than a minute, arrived at the hatch to the bridge.

* * *

'We're under attack,' a junior officer told them as they climbed up through the porthole. There were sparks shooting all across the bridge and several bodies lay on the floor.

'Send out a distress signal on all Starfleet frequencies: we are under attack from an unknown alien vessel.' The captain, in obvious distress but still giving commands in a determined voice, turned to the new arrivals. 'Mr. Meyers, Mr. Jacobs, my Conn and Tactical officers have been taken down to sickbay.'

The two cadets didn't need telling twice. 'I'll take the Conn,' Matt replied immediately and sat in the vacated seat. Although Matt had the reputation of being the best pilot in Starfleet, being a Conn officer meant much more than just flying, and Matt hoped Alex would recover soon. After all, there was a reason why Command was his major, and fighter piloting only a hobby, he never expected to actually sit in his friend's seat.

Steven reacted even faster than Matt, probably due to the endless hours of combat training meant to improve reaction times he had been through, and by the time Matt had finished the thought, he was already sitting on the right hand edge of the triangular command console labeled 'Tactical'.

'Now's the time to put all your training to good u..' the Captain tried his usual optimistic tone, but broke mid-sentence as screen before him filled with the vessel that had attacked them.

A monstrous battleship that looked unlike anything they had ever seen before was turning in a large arc towards them, preparing for another pass. It was huge. Far larger than any Starfleet vessel, even the new Sovereign Class, and it didn't take two years of Starfleet training to tell Matt and Steven that this was a battle that they couldn't win.

Steven looked down at the tactical readouts before him and did a double-take. The giant vessel was surging with power, refitting itself before his very eyes and directing almost all power into the weapon that had already thrice fired at them. It was a massive Ion cannon that was visible even on the rectangular hull of the ship. Considering how much damage the Ion Cannon had done while being underpowered, (that thought ran shivers down his spine) a single hit would probably completely vaporize the old freighter.

As he relayed this information to the Captain, the man's face turned grave.

'Evasive maneuvers,' he commanded and Matt immediately started punching in the most complicated head-on evasive pattern he could think of, but even then he knew that, unless a miracle happened, no matter how creative he was, the bulky freighter stood no chance.

* * *

'I'm going to need all you can give me from the engines,' the captain's voice echoed through engineering.

'Already on it Cap'n,' the eccentric Chief Engineer responded, rushing from console to console as fast as his elderly legs would allow him.

The hatch above opened and T'Vral and Ryan entered, followed by a group of about five first year cadets.

'No kids in engineering!' the old man shouted, but a grin had filled his face. 'Little guy, I need a thorough purge of the intake manifolds so I can run a controlled overload, can you do it?' he asked but Ryan, who had a giant bruise on his forehead from his fall in the mess hall, had already sprang into action.

'Ears…' the engineer continued as T'Vral approached him. 'You'll be closely monitoring the Dilithium matrix. If anything out of the ordinary happens, holler.'

'Vulcans don't ho…' but he was already giving commands to the first years, so T'Vral let the thought go and focused on her task. If she were human, she might have felt disappointed that she had been delegated a task far below her level, but as it was, logic demanded she follow instructions exactly in order to minimize chaos.

* * *

'Nice flying!' the captain exclaimed as Matt dodged another Ion blast even with the poor maneuverability of the freighter. The first few shots were easy to dodge, but every successive one harder, it was almost as if the crew, or whoever was piloting the ship was recording Matt's evasive patterns, analyzing them, and adapting. With every pass, Matt wondered if it would be the last. They were getting better and better at predicting what he was going to do, yet continued to fly past them from front and back. Why didn't they just sit on their tail and fire that Ion cannon until they hit? Considering how inexperienced they seemed during the first passes, perhaps they were using them as target practice, training. Or were they just having a little fun?

'I'm going to recommend you for Nova Squadron when we get back!' the captain beamed as Matt dodged another blinding white blast. He didn't think it was the right time to mention that he was already a member of the elite fighter-pilot group.

'For someone in Command, you have a great aptitude for Flight Control,' he continued to praise Matt and the cadet marveled at the charismatic man's command ability. He was a model leader, keeping his crew together with words even when the situation itself was dire.

'Flying and Flight Control isn't the same thing,' Matt decided to continue the conversation in the hope that it would ease the growing tension and fear on the bridge. They had managed to evade every shot since the first three that had injured and killed several of the crew, and there was something in the air that told him they were just waiting until it would happen again.

The ship missed again and passed overhead as Matt managed to dodge yet another blast, but this time it was quite a close call, and even through the vacuum of space, they could feel the energy of the blast so close to their hull. Whoever was on that ship, they were definitely quick learners and Matt was running out of evasive patterns to use.

* * *

Ryan finished his work on the intake manifolds and, without asking the chief engineer for permission, proceeded to run the procedure. He could feel the warp engine rev up and for a moment it seemed the engine would in fact overload, but just as Ryan was about to start the emergency shutdown, the engine began to settle down. He had done it! He managed to create a controlled overload on his first attempt. The engine was shaking slightly, due to the accelerated fusion of the Dilithium crystals and quicker decay of antimatter, but was holding together quite well. This gave them what, twenty, thirty percent higher output from the engines?

'What are you doing?!' the chief engineer pushed him aside, looking at his shaking engine, like a father looking at his sick child.

For a moment, Ryan thought the old man was going to hit him, and when he spun around, he actually felt himself jump back a bit, but the chief just slapped his shoulder with a big grin on his face.

'You've got talent kid,' and without any other comment, walked back to a group of first years.

Despite the fact that they were in combat, with who knows what chances of ever getting out of this alive, Ryan couldn't help but smile. He looked over at T'Vral. Was she also grinning back at him? No, he must have imagined it. Vulcans didn't grin. But T'Vral was moving, she wasn't looking at the Dilithium matrix as she was supposed to, but rushing to the old engineer. What was…

Ryan goofy grin turned to a grimace of despair as he watched the old man clutch his chest and stumble. His legs buckled and he began to fall to the ground, only to be scooped up in T'Vral's hands, who had rushed the twenty meters across engineering with the speed of one of those large cats which only existed in Zoos these days.

The first year, who had already been on the verge of panic, stared at the dying man and a girl probably only a year or so younger than Ryan screamed. Her voice pierced even the dense atmosphere of engineering. It completely overpowered the deep hum of the Warp engine, until Ryan could hear nothing else. It was strangely poetic, like something out of a movie, Ryan wondered. While T'Vral desperately tried to revive the old man, Ryan seemed to lose touch with the world around him. The colours were staring to get more and more pronounced, and the girl's screaming filled his ears. He sat down against the Warp core and looked ahead, his eyes unfocused.

* * *

Up on the bridge, Matthew was struggling to react to another attacking run. He was half way through a complex maneuver he had just punched in when something in his mind started screaming. He checked the readouts before him and the image of the giant ship ahead and knew that his inner voice was right. They got him. This time they anticipated his move. His hands shot back to the controls at lightning speed, but froze above them. For the first time in his life, Matt didn't know what to do in a combat situation.

The ship was angling towards them, compensating for every erratic course adjustment, even the short bout of reverse thrusters and spin around the z-axis. His eyes widened as he heard beep of warning from Steve's console. The giant Ion cannon locked onto them.

'Pull to bearing three point four, mark two one five, then release the backmost port cargo module,' Alex was climbing through the port hole, looking slightly dazed, but recovered from her fall in the mess hall.

Matt didn't need telling twice, he followed her instructions just in time for the cannon to fire, and hit the detached cargo module. The ship shook from the shockwave, but there was no major damage.

'You've been at it for too long Matt,' she smiled at him as the alien ship passed over them, its cannon recharging. 'I've been watching from sickbay and you've lasted about ten passes longer than I would have done.' Very much like Ryan downstairs, there was a smirk plastered over her face despite the fact that they just barely avoided death.

She moved to stand beside him and they started working on the next maneuver they would try together…

* * *

Ryan watched the scene unfold before him with a sense of calm detachment. T'Vral ordered two first years to take the man to sickbay, but Ryan knew he was already dead. And what did it matter? They were all going to die here. Just like his mother, just like everybody else he ever cared about. Why did he ever decide to start a career in Starfleet? After losing both his arms and legs and a parent in a space battle, what in the world made him do it? There was no point in thinking about it. Maybe he should go down to the mess hall and have something to eat. He felt hungry. He was interrupted and hadn't finish his food at lunch. He slowly got up and walked to the hatch leading out of engineering and onto the main deck.

'Where are you going?' T'Vral grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around.

'To the mess hall,' he said evenly.

The tall Vulcan opened her mouth to ask the inclining question that logic demanded: 'what was in the mess hall?' but stopped herself.

'I cannot do this alone,' she said in an equally even voice. 'You are needed here.'

Something tugged at Ryan's mind, almost snapped him back to reality, but then he just waved a dizzy hand and started climbing up. He was almost at the hatch when he felt something sharp just above his collar bone. Then everything went black.

* * *

When he came to, Ryan was looking into the face of T'Vral. Her face was so close if he moved only a few millimeters, their lips would touch. Was there a frown on her face? And again, Ryan whished away the idea: Vulcans didn't frown. A voice in his mind started shouting things like 'what are you doing?' or 'snap out of it', but as before, he didn't respond.

He would just get up and climb up the ladder again. He started pushing himself up when he felt something cold touch his face. For a moment he thought that T'Vral had kissed him on the cheek, but then he felt his eyes closed, and as if from a great distance, far above the rumbling of engineering, he heard a soft voice.

'My mind to your mind…'

* * *

Matthew and Alex worked in a perfect tandem, complementing their skills and working together in the epitome of 'the whole was more than the sum of their parts'. But even that wasn't going to be enough forever. They now knew that both of Matt's guesses were true. The crew on that alien ship was probably a trainee crew, or a crew that had never seen battle before, but they were also playing around with them. It wasn't one or the other, but both. But how long were they going to play around before they got tired of it and blew them to pieces?

On this run, they had fired even before they had completed their arc, trying to surprise the crew of the freighter, but Steven had been just as attentive and noticed the power surge before the blast and they had time to make a final course adjustment.

To their great astonishment, Jaroslav, who had until then been observing more than anything else, rushed to their side.

'I have an idea…' he said gravely.

* * *

It was the most peculiar feeling Ryan had ever experienced. Even more so than when he had first woken up with his prosthetic limbs. The myriad of thoughts that were pouring in and out of him and in every other direction were thoroughly confusing, and a little frightening, but also beautiful. Even though his eyes were closed, colours, images and strange waves were spinning all around him, and his mouth would have been wide open in wonder, had he been able to control it. He soon realized that not all of the images and thoughts were his own and, with some measure of focus, discovered they were T'Vral's. Focusing even harder, he could hear the sounds of engineering what seemed like miles away. People were talking, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. The words were garbled and sounded like something coming through a faulty universal translator.

'What you hear are their voices in slow motion,' a beautiful and soft, but emotionless voice echoed around him.

'T'Vral? Is that you?' Ryan wanted to speak out loud, but his body wasn't responding.

'You have to overcome your past Ryan,' she continued without heeding his question.

'I don't,' he tried to protest again, but the voice continued to echo around him.

'I know what happened to your mother, to you…'

'NO!' Ryan was screaming in his mind. 'How could you, how dare you!' she was invading his mind, unlocking things that were supposed to be forever locked away in the folds of memory. He hated her. Despite whatever he may have felt when he first saw her look at him with those deep brown eyes, he hated her with the very essence of his being.

'Get out!' he shouted, forcing his mind to focus. He felt the world around him move slightly out of focus and the real world flash back for a fraction of a second, but then he was back in the illusionary world he now hated just as much as T'Vral.

'Let me go!' he screamed again, and pushed against her mind. All of his willpower he manipulated into a giant hammer that he would strike T'Vral with and… BANG.

The real world flashed back and Ryan could see the first year crouched over him and T'Vral. For a moment he thought that he had succeeded, that he got that evil witch out of his head, but then the world faded away again.

The anger in him flared and he tried to push her out again. He tried and tried, but the anger wasn't letting him focus. Had he been in the real world, he'd be flailing his prosthetic arms around and kicking with his equally inhuman legs, but as it was, he couldn't do anything. And all of a sudden, all that anger transformed into a great well of despair. Whatever emotions he had used to cloud his fear, whatever premise he had used to pretend everything was alright, whatever other lie he had made up to be able to live with his past, they were all washed away. Flailing arms and legs turned into a limp body and the world around him faded.

Ryan felt hot tears streaming down his face, but… he wasn't… they weren't... He didn't understand.

'TVral?' he muttered confusedly, still recovering from the great mental exhaustion.

The girl lay across him, her hand still on his face, and she was crying. Ryan's eyes widened, any trace of anger and hatred towards the girl left in that illusionary world.

'T'Vral?' he asked again, trying to sound comforting.

The Vulcan that looked about his age, but in Vulcan years must have been almost twice as old as he was, looked into his eyes. In the brief second that he looked into those deep eyes, he felt the ghosts of his past relinquish their grip on him.

T'Vral then stood up. Ryan thought that even the way she stood up had a sort of elegance that only Vulcans seemed to have. Ryan followed, looking down for only a slight moment as he pushed himself off the ground, and when he looked up, her face was back to its usual emotionless state. Had it not been for the traces of tears running down her cheeks, Ryan might have wondered if everything that had happened was not some kind of twisted dream.

'Will you still be going to the mess hall?' she asked in a calm voice that bore no resemblance to a voice of a person that had recently been crying.

Ryan looked at her for a moment, then his face filled with a broad smile. And it wasn't a fake smile, a smile wrought of hidden sorrows and merely masking his true pain, it was a real smile.

'Let's get to work,' he said and started delegating the first years.

* * *

Everybody on the bridge seemed to be forming a group around the 'Flight Control' station. Matt sat in the chair and punched in commands, while Alex, Jaroslav and anybody else that may have had an idea pitched in. For the first time since he had met the Czech Command officer, Matt was grateful that he was there. Despite the constant questioning of his decisions and steadily increasing rivalry, Jaroslav Svoboda was definitely an asset. He was definitely a great tactician and, although often risky and indicative of his cockiness, his ideas were unlike any of the other bridge officers.

But even the combined efforts of everyone on the bridge were minute by minute, pass after pass, becoming increasingly desperate. With every blinding flare of the Ion cannon, they wondered if it would be the last.

Ryan and T'Vral, down in engineering, had given them all that the old freighter warp 6 engine could give them, and more. Even managed to pull off a couple of full stops, and reverses, courtesy of Jaroslav, to evade the alien ship's constant attack, but despite not being actually hit by a Ion blast, the old ship was steadily breaking apart. It was meant for calm voyages at a single speed in a single direction with only minor course corrections. This siege had already lasted over two hours and the engines were already starting to protest.

As the ship passed overhead after another unsuccessful, though very frightening, pass, the lights on the bridge went off.

'Status report!' the Captain shouted, but neither the \main computer, nor the engineering responded.

'Engineering, report!' One of the officers had rushed to the manual communicator, his trembled and the entire bridge stood frozen as they awaited an answer.

'We had to shut the Warp core down,' Ryan shouted back from engineering.

'It was overloading and would have destroyed us had it exploded,' T'Vral added from beside him.

As the emergency lighting came on, everybody looked to the Captain.

'Send our coordinates to Starfleet Command…' he paused for a moment and Matt noticed there was a tear running down his face. 'Prepare to abandon ship,' he said quietly. The others stared at him in frozen despair. This ship had been their home for an entire generation and now it was all over.

'We have two minutes before their Ion Cannon recharges,' Steven said, bringing everyone back to reality. They opened the hatch and started sliding down the bars of the ladder. Two more, then it would be Matt's turn. He watched the first man slide down, fall half way and collapse on the deck below. The next man fell on top of him. So this was it. This was chaos and panic. Matt stepped forward, was about to slide down when he heard an unmistakable sound.

They were being hailed.

'Open hailing frequencies,' the captain said as the men that had climbed or fallen to the deck below hurried back up.

'Freighter Abbadon, this is Captain Thar of the Starfleet vessel USS Discovery. Prepare to lower your shields for transport.'

The Captain rushed to his seat from which he answered the hail.

'We have no shields to speak of Captain. Energize now before the alien ship's weapon recharges and tears us to pieces.'

There was no reply. Matthew counted three seconds before he heard a click as the hailing channel closed. A thought began to form in his mind, but before it could materialize, he felt the familiar sensation of his body being pulled apart in a million directions and then pushed back together. When he opened his eyes, he and all the other crewmembers of the freighter were looking at the familiar sight of a Starfleet design cargo bay.

* * *

The USS Discovery passed by the freighter, just as the blinding beam of the Ion cannon connected with it. It seemed to be engulfed in a momentary greenish glow, then exploded, the hull ripped apart as easily as a child desperately trying to get to one of its presents.

* * *

Matthew looked around the cargo bay and his stomach unclenched as he caught sight of all his friends. Alex, Steven and Jaroslav had all been on the bridge, and he'd heard from Ryan and T'Vral from engineering, but he had no idea about the others. Niklas and Kajsa, who were probably in their quarters when the attack happened, lay across makeshift beds before a very scared and distraught Cyanne. His first urge was to go over immediately and find out what was wrong, but the instincts he had picked up in command school stopped him. First he had to find out what was going on, what needed to be done for them to get out of this mess.

'This is Captain Thar,' they heard over the intercom. 'Crew of the Abbadon, report to the situation room immediately. I'm going to need a full report…' the ship shook from an Ion cannon blast, but the shields seemed to hold. They heard several muffled commands as the Captain tended to his duties, then addressed them again. 'I am aware that you are carrying Starfleet Cadets and Initiates aboard. Please remain in the cargo bay. We will are going to lock you in, in case we get boarded. Nevertheless, arm yourselves from the containers situated there.'

The adults, including the captain and doctor, quickly rushed out, the latter giving Cyanne a last set of rushed instructions. The ship rocked again, as the ship evaded another Ion cannon blast.

The crew of the alien ship must have indeed learned a lot from their previous encounter, if they were giving an experienced Starfleet crew a run fro their money. Matt wondered if they were going to stay and fight, or try to outrun the ship, just as he felt them go into warp. The stars outside were streaking by and the realization that the crew of the Discovery considered this to be a hopeless battle somehow made him proud that they had contended with them for so long.

'What kind of ship are we on?' Steven asked curiously, he seemed much more relaxed now that they were on a military vessel.

'Wait a sec,' Matt said and walked towards Cyanne. She was looking increasingly frightened and he couldn't resist the urge to go and comfort her. He was only a few meters away, when he froze. His legs didn't want to move and unwanted questions were springing into his mind. What was he going to say? He had no right to assume he could comfort her. He stood there for a while, watching the dark-haired girl struggle on the verge of tears.

Surprisingly, it was Alex that noticed his lack of resolve and brushed past him.

'You ok, sweetie?' she asked the other girl kindly, thinking that 'after all that resolve on the bridge, after taking the lives of the entire crew into his own hands without as single moment of hesitation, he now can't even make up his mind. He's so clueless…'

'I… I…' Cyanne mumbled. She was looking down at her hands, which were covered in blood.

Seeing her stand there, so fragile and afraid, was like being clubbed over the head. Yet Matt still didn't move.

A hand pulled on Matthew's and he turned around. 'She's been doing great,' Niklas said quietly from his bed. 'Been asking the new arrivals in sickbay about you, she needs you man…'

'We've never even spoken,' Matthew replied in a whisper of his own.

'And that matters, how?' In the strangest way, that made sense to Matthew. He suddenly walked over, passed Alex, and hugged Cyanne. He didn't say a single word and neither did she. She gripped him hard and wept into his shoulder and a meter away… Alex was smiling.

* * *

'So, what kind of ship are we on?' Steven asked with a smirk when they had finally stopped hugging.

'What?' Matt turned around only to see his friends smirking at him. Even Ryan couldn't resist the temptation. He could sense Cyanne hide behind him from the staring crowd.

'Do you mind guys?' he asked, a smile returning to his face after hours of stress.

'Yup,' Steven was sitting by Kajsa and holding her hand.

'Hi Matt,' she said happily. Matt wondered what Kajsa had done during the attack. She probably took the distress of their previous situation the hardest, having been afraid of the dangers of space travel even before they had set out. The radiance that was coming from her now reassured him that, despite her fears, she belonged in Starfleet.

'You feeling better?' he asked Niklas, who stood by the others, and Kajsa's brother nodded.

'Alrighty,' he linked a hand in Cyanne's and led her to the bed Niklas had been in previously. There he laid her down and whispered into her ear. 'Get some rest, you deserve it.'

'Is anyone going to answer my question?' Steven asked, but there was no impatience in his voice.

'The Discovery is a Nova Class light cruiser,' Matt said, remembering the name from his list of offered positions.

'A Nova Class ship?' Kajsa said, her voice suddenly reverting back to a scared state. 'Aren't those short-term planetary research vessels?' Steven and Niklas now each held her hands and turned to Matt with questioning looks.

'Don't worry,' Matt's look was sincere. 'Nova class ships used to be short term planetary research vessels. Used to,' he repeated it, just in case. 'Remember the Defiant Pathfinder project?' Kajsa nodded, some of the others remembering the ship design. 'Nova class ships were a precursor to the Defiant class. They were more compact, functional, with fewer recreational and civilian areas, meant to do what the Defiant class does now: act as a combat vessel against the Borg.'

'But when the Borg threat was over,' Matt continued. 'And the Defiant project was put into mothballs,' Matt remembered how it had been gloriously taken out of mothballs by its great designer Captain Sisko, then continued his explanation to not only his friends, but the crowd of cadets that had gathered around to find out what was going on. 'The Defiant Pathfinder Class was renamed Nova Class and refitted for scientific use to replace the old Oberth class.'

'So it is a science vessel,' Jaroslav said. It wasn't a question and some of the enmity Matthew had towards the other command cadet that had left him during their cooperation on the bridge came back.

'It was a science vessel,' Matt asserted. 'As you know, during the Dominion wars, all ships were refitted for combat, and thus the Nova Class returned back to very much what its initial designs had been. And as you know, after the decimation of the fleet during the Dominion Wars, all ships remained in their combat refits in order to protect the struggling Federation.'

This last sentence seemed to relieve some of the tension that was building up around Matt as he talked. However, they were all still very much aware that they were on a light cruiser. No matter how combat-ready, it was still about half the size of an Intrepid Class such as the great Voyager that returned from the Delta Quadrant last year. They probably couldn't match the alien ship n firepower, but they all hoped that they could outrun them. Which, judging by the streaking stars they could see through the windows, they were successfully doing.

* * *

'Are they still behind us?' Captain Thar asked his Conn Officer as the ship accelerated to warp 9.

'Gaining,' the woman replied in a calm, Starfleet, voice.

'Can we reach Gamma Sirti in time?' the Captain asked again.

'Negative.'

'Any Starfleet ships in the area?' he asked again.

'Negative, we're the only Starfleet vessel in the sector, sir. The USS Chicago, a Norway Class vessel is about eleven light years away, but not close enough to intercept. In fact, from these readouts, it is stationed at a small base awaiting some of the Cadets we have transported over and...'

'And what?' the Andorian Captain asked, frustrated at the human need to be dramatic.

'Its abandoned sir,' she said simply.

'What do you mean, abandoned?'

'Report says it was attacked by an unknown vessel, crew is missing.'

'What!?' the Captain shouted angrily. 'Ships have been attacked and nobody bothered to investigate? Where are the large explorers?'

'A nearest Galaxy class ship is more than two weeks away, sir. Starfleet has been dealing with minor skirmishes on all fronts. Our adversaries can sense that we are weakened.'

'Never mind,' the Captain snapped. 'But remind me to have a little talk with the Admiral that told us this would be an uneventful supply run.'

* * *

'We were told to arm ourselves,' Matthew reminded everyone.

'We're safe, probably out of harm's way,' Jaroslav waved him off.

Matt didn't speak out loud, but took Jaroslav and his friends aside. He let Cyanne and Kajsa sleep, they could be told later.

'If that were true,' he whispered so the first year cadets wouldn't hear them, 'somebody would have come to tell us by now. They're probably trailing us. We have to be careful about panic though,' he paused again just long enough to see a first year turn around and look over at them suspiciously. 'If we make it sound like we simply have to follow the orders, no matter how irrelevant they might be now… now that we are 'safe', we can probably manage it without having a riot on our hands.'

Everybody nodded and turned back to the first years.

'Steve, Alex,' Matt stopped his best friends. 'Let's go check out those containers. The Captain said they contain weapons.'

* * *

It turned out that the containers contained much more than just side-arms. Torpedo launchers with racks of photon and quantum torpedoes, phaser emitters, replicators, a secondary deflector dish, portable power and shield generators, transporter pads, bridge consoles, endless spare parts and even the components for a Warp One support engine. The largest containers were almost as tall as the cargo bay, which itself three of the seven decks of the Nova Class starship. These were probably full of bulk material used for replication. The Discovery was definitely well supplied, but they supposed it made more sense that they were delivering this to someone else.

Once everybody was armed with phaser pistols or rifles, Matt and the others sat together and wondered what would happen next. The look on Kajsa's face, so much different from the look of joy she had when they all thought it was over, constantly reminded them of the sad fact that those celebrations were probably premature.

Cyanne was still sleeping, her black hair covering her face. Matt had woken her up for just long enough to tell her that there still might be danger, but reassured her that everything would be ok now that they were on a Starfleet vessel. She had smiled and offered to help with the first years, but Matt could see the fatigue in those dark eyes and let her sleep. He found that watching the nurse sleep was strangely soothing and his look of content must have had an effect on Alex as well, who seemed happier than she had been since… since they received their third year assignments. Matthew thought about this for a moment. Yes, she had been her usual self before that, and then everything had suddenly changed. Her emotional reaction to her grandmother's death, the pained look on her face when he had missed her on the landing platform, the anger towards the Betazoid, it all made sense now. How could he not have noticed?

He slowly got up from Cyanne's bed, careful not to wake her and walked over to Alex, who was talking to a couple of first years.

'You know, don't you?' he asked her. It was a feeble sentence, but none other came to mind.

'What?' Alex asked confusedly.

'You know…' and he looked deep into her eyes and saw the realization there.

* * *

Alex laughed at the first year's joke only to hear a very familiar voice say: 'You know, don't you?' It was Matt. What was he talking about? What did she know?

'You know…' he repeated and Alex looked back into his eyes calmly, still confused. But then she panicked inside. 'Does he mean me? He knows? Did Steven tell him? I'm gonna kill him if he did!' But suddenly, she realized that Matt had said 'you know', not 'I know'. Then horror struck her and she realized what he meant. Yes, she knew…

* * *

Matt watched Alex hesitate, then open her mouth to speak, then close it again. Considering how long they had known each other, this was answer enough for him.

'You could have come to me,' he said in a hurt voice.

'And you could have told us,' she said in one equally as hurt.

They looked into each other's eyes for a moment,

'How did you find out?' she asked curiously.

'It just came to me.'

'What gave it away?'

'I don't know why I didn't notice earlier, but sitting over there,' he pointed towards Cyanne, 'I suddenly realized that ever since the assignments, you had been behaving a bit…'

'You can say it,' Alex laughed.

'Different?' They both laughed at his diplomacy, but then he added quickly. 'Different in a new and equally adorable way.' At this Alex smiled and even blushed slightly.

'And here I though I was a perceptive guy,' Matthew laughed again.

'You are,' she laughed back. 'Only not when it comes to me.'

Matthew frowned again, she was talking about more than just this secret of his… but what was it?

Suddenly, the cargo bay shook and Matthew instinctively threw out an arm and managed to stop Alex from a second dangerous fall that day.

'Thanks,' she muttered. 'What's going on?'

* * *

'Drop out of warp,' the Captain commanded. The engines hummed and the stars became tiny specks again. 'Red Alert.'

'Fire phasers!'

'No damage sir…'

* * *

Back in the cargo bay, the third years were desperately trying to calm everyone down. The prospect of another hopeless battle was daunting even for them, but they couldn't afford to have the first years running around like headless chicken if the aliens boarded.

They decided to work in groups. Everybody was assigned a group of first years on the fly, usually those they had worked with before or were more familiar with, then proceeded with calming them down. To Matthew's surprise, the first person to calm his group down after him and T'Vral, was Jaroslav. Matt didn't know whether he had shouted at them that he'd toss them out of an airlock or completely maim some of them, but whatever it was, it seemed to work. Unlikable fellow as he was, he certainly belonged in Command.

Although they hadn't been hit since the first blast, the helmsman was maneuvering so vehemently that they were constantly being thrown around and since they didn't have the luxury of dampening fields on their seats like the bridge officers, which meant bracing themselves between the equipment containers. Matt had a detached thought of what it would have looked like if somebody opened the door to the cargo bay and saw them there, almost forty cadets, with their arms and legs against the containers, as if trying to push them away.

* * *

The cargo bay shook violently again and Cyanne was thrown against the container in front of her. Even her outstretched hands and legs, braced against it, couldn't stop her from painfully colliding with it. She let out a soft moan, but when she saw the first year next to her, the pain washed away. He probably didn't recover after the last blast and wasn't in position when the next one hit them. His face collided with the container and there was blood trickling down his right eyebrow. She quickly removed the medical tricorder which was safely tucked into her back pocket and mended the cut in a heartbeat. Whatever other damage the blow may have caused would have to wait for the doctor, but then she realized that it may be hours before any doctor came.

She looked at the readings as she scanned the cadet's head. It seemed that it was only a surface wound and she let out a sigh of relief. With the equipment she had at hand, there would be little she could have done if the wound was any worse. But just as she was considering this grave situation she heard a moan of pain. It was Matt.

'What's wrong?' she asked in a worried voice.

'Remember the mess hall?' The lunch they had about four hours ago seemed so far away, but she could distinctly remember Matthew pin her to the floor and then do it a second time as he tried to put pressure on his right hand.

'I think it might be broken,' Matthew said, looking over his arm.

'And you've been using it all along?' Cyanne was frowning at the offending arm. 'Give it here.'

'I just need something for the pain,' Matthew smiled.

'You should have gone to sickbay immediately.'

'I thought you were the one saying I was needed on the bridge.'

'But, I… I didn't…' she stumbled.

'It's ok,' he smiled at her and extended his arm.

'It's a straight crack,' she released the breath she was holding and started setting up the tricorder.

'And that's good?' Matt never cared much for medicine and always learned just enough to pass his exams at the academy.

'Means I can give you a quick fix,' she smiled and ran the tricorder over the fracture for a few moments. 'There…' she said and kissed the place where the fracture would have been.

'I hope you don't do that with all your patients,' Matthew joked, but the affectionate gesture made him smile.

'Nope,' Cyanne returned the smile, but then they were both thrown to the side as the largest explosion yet hit the ship. They looked around. People were getting up and it seemed that nobody was hurt badly, but then a realization hit them. This last blast was actually a hit to the hull. Their shields were down.

'Ready your weapons,' Matthew shouted over the talking, but there would be no need for phasers. On the other side of the cargo bay, a gas was starting to leak from some plasma conduit.

'Ryan,' Matthew shouted and started looking for the engineer.

'What's going on?' Kajsa asked him and noticed the gas. 'Matt, we have to get out of here, if that's burning plasma, it'll make the air here toxic in a matter of minutes.'

'I know,' Matt said gravely. 'Have you seen Ryan?'

'He's over there,' she pointed and Matt sprinted over to him.

* * *

While Matt, Ryan and Steven desperately tried to uncouple the surrounding wall plates that led to the plasma conduit, the others were herding on the other end of the cargo bay. The ship wasn't shaking anymore and it seemed that the fighting was either over, or the Starfleet crew had surrendered.

'This won't work,' Jaroslav shouted at them from the other side, and Matthew had to admit that the other cadet was probably right. There was no way they could detach the plating quick enough to stop the plasma flow before the poisonous gas filled the entire cargo bay. Matthew looked around, desperately looking for another solution.

'Jeffries tubes!' he shouted back in Jaroslav's direction. The hissing of the plasma and the dense air somewhat dulling the exclamation.

But Jaroslav seemed to have understood. The Jeffries tubes leading from the cargo bay would have sufficient air to last a couple of hours. If they could just stop the plasma flow, then they wouldn't have to wait in the gas until life support eliminated it. He immediately opened the main hatch and started forming a line.

* * *

Almost all of the other cadets had already climbed into the Jeffries tube, but Matt and the others still had one last security lock to break before they could remove the panel beneath which was the plasma conduit. The air was getting increasingly difficult to breathe and Matt felt like a thin filament of a sticky substance was starting to form on the insides of his mouth and nose.

Steven finally removed the panel and they looked down to see an emergency seal. When Matthew noticed the code input, he was glad that he had taken Ryan along. The young engineer immediately started rewiring the lock and Matthew felt his head spin slightly. He was getting increasingly dizzy, and was struggling to stay on his feet.

He counted the seconds as Ryan worked. They could still make it, they could still run to the hatch the others had closed, knock and hide with them, but what use would it do, if they all suffocated a couple of hours later. No, they had to stay.

Ryan staggered, but continued to work, the layer of residue in Matt's mouth was starting to block his air pipe and he retched, spewing a dark green jelly-like slag. Ryan shouted in triumph and Matt could hear the plasma leak slow down, then stop. They turned around and ran to the hatch. Half way across, Ryan collapsed and they had to carry him, but in the end, they made the hatch in time, banged on it desperately, and let themselves be pulled in.

Cyanne screamed when she saw them and immediately gave them each a pair of hypos. They didn't know what was inside them, but whatever it was, it helped them breathe immediately.

Moments later, they had all simultaneously vomited that dark green stuff out.

'A few more seconds and you wouldn't have made it,' Cyanne muttered quietly, as if not really wanting them to hear it.

'Thank God we have you,' Matthew tried a smile, but proceeded to vomit more of the green slag.

* * *

They stayed there for almost two hours, by which almost everyone was starting to feel the amount of oxygen decreasing. They repeatedly checked the state of the cargo bay, but it was still unbreathable. There was no sound of battle, but also no call for them to come out.

'Maybe comm. is down,' Matt thought. 'We have to get out of here though, soon.'

Maybe they could climb out of the Jeffries tube at another porthole. Matt sent a message down the tube to the other end. It was like a giant version of the ever popular game 'Chinese whispers' and he could see the message being passed along. When the reply came, he sighed in relief.

* * *

When Matt, Steven, Alex, Niklas, Kajsa, T'Vral and Jaroslav (Cyanne wanted to stay with some of the injured first years) climbed out of the porthole they could only stare in shock. The cargo bay must have been a low priority target, because the Discovery was completely devastated. Bulkheads were lying across the floor, doors were jammed, consoles sparked and the emergency lighting was flickering threateningly.

They made their way to the bridge and passed the large door of the cargo bay. Here they saw the first signs of battle. Phaser burns were on the walls and door itself. It seemed that the Starfleet officers had protected the cargo bay desperately, but there were none there now, and neither were there any bodies. Maybe they really did win and merely couldn't reach the cargo bay to tell them of the victory. But as they walked through the ship towards the bridge, that thought was starting to become more and more futile. Although they didn't come across any bodies and the only other place where they saw phaser burns was above engineering, the Discovery was starting to look more and more like a ghost ship.

Ryan almost got hit with a falling bulkhead and Kajsa was on the verge of tears when they reached the access tube to the bridge. They couldn't risk the turbolifts considering the state the ship was in, so they'd have to climb up the ladder.

When they emerged on the bridge, it didn't seem to be as damaged as the rest of the ship, but compared to even the worst simulations they had been through at the academy, it was still the most damaged bridge they had ever seen.

'At least some of the consoles still seem to be working,' he thought to himself in a forced attempt at optimism.

They were adrift on a deserted and damaged ship, nothing but nine third year cadets and a group of thirty initiates that had only just joined the academy and were on their first field trip before school started.

They had to get home somehow, or call for help. Each one of the eight of them probably reached this thought, but then the viewscreen flickered and an image filled it.

The alien ship was right before them, undamaged and completely intact, towing them behind itself in a giant tractor beam.

To be continued…


	7. 1x07 Red Alert Part II

Episode 1x07 – Red Alert Part II

Matthew and the others stared at the viewscreen with their mouths open. Judging from the streaking stars, the massive alien ship was towing them at high warp. Matt turned around and saw the shock on his friends' faces. Now was the time to take charge, to become the commanding officer Starfleet had always insisted he was.

'Stations everyone!' he called out.

The bridge was of typical Starfleet design. It had a circular shape with the captain's chair in the middle, slightly elevated for good tactical overview. The flashing Master Systems Display was at the back side, indicating several major hull breaches and other serious damage. It was a miracle that anything on the bridge even worked, considering the punishment the Nova Class vessel had taken.

Alex and Niklas rushed to the elongated console directly in front of the captain's chair. It was separated in the middle and two signs that read 'Flight Control' and 'Operations' flashed on each side. Even before Alex was in her seat, she was already punching commands into the console, bringing up a stream of numbers and diagrams indicating their current flight information.

Steve had moved just as quickly. He was already sitting by the 'Tactical' station to the right of the captain's chair and, like Alex, had brought up a series of diagnostics, most of them flashing red menacingly. Matt felt proud when he saw the resolve his two closest friends and Niklas had shown. The only other person he could be as proud of was T'Vral. In fact, she had dashed to the Engineering station at the back wall of the bridge even before Matt had issued his command. Jaroslav seemed determined not to follow the orders if only because Matthew had uttered them and Ryan and Kajsa were still standing by the access hatch with no apparent motivation to move.

Matt opened his mouth to speak, but Niklas, who had brought up the damage control list and had started working on prioritizing the ship's resources, turned to his sister and gave a sort of jerk with his head. She immediately took her seat at the 'Science' console on the left side of the bridge, opposite to Steven.

'Ryan,' Matt turned to the short engineer, 'head down to engineering. We need to know what shape we're in.'

Ryan didn't seem too thrilled to go walking through the ghost ship on his own, but nodded and turned to go.

'M-Matt?' Surprisingly, it was Kajsa who was the first to speak after Matt. 'Judging by the massive transporter signatures all over the ship and seeing as we saw almost no signs of battle on our way here, it looks like everyone was beamed off pretty quickly. The only places where we've seen actual phaser blasts were near engineering and the cargo bays. They're also the only places with no transporter signatures.'

Ryan was almost at the turbolift when he must have heard.

'It seems like the strengthened dampening field around those areas interfered with their sensors and transporters.'

Matthew took only a slight moment to carefully analyze what such implications meant. Both conclusions made sense, and explained why everybody was beamed off and they were left behind.

'Could you set up a similar field around the bridge and other key areas?' Matthew asked. 'We need to make sure they don't notice there are still people running around the ship.'

'No problem Matt,' Ryan almost smiled, but the general uneasiness that was in the air was still evident. 'It's as simple as rerouting the EPS conduits running through the bulkheads, any first year engineer could do it.'

'Great,' Matthew gave him a praising look, 'in that case, try to get some of the first years to come up here. It'll give them something to do and keep them from breaking down on us. Oh, and tell the others to sit tight in the cargo bay once the air clears.'

Ryan disappeared down the turbolift and Matthew turned around, the image of the alien ship appearing as menacing as ever. They will have to do something… but what? They couldn't hide forever, and sooner or later, the alien ship would reach its destination.

'Jaroslav, go back to the Jeffries tubes and explain to the others what's going on. Grab any of the first years in Command School and bring them back to the bridge. Oh, and I want strict radio silence. Don't use the ship's comm. system unless it's absolutely necessary.' He made a sort of annoyed gesture with his head, still reluctant about following any of Matthew's orders, but then climbed back down the hatch.

Several minutes had passed, during which three timid first years arrived at the bridge and started removing bulkheads to protect the bridge from the alien's sensors. T'Vral finished analyzing the engineering data and went to join Ryan in Main Engineering and the others were still trying to making sense of the information on their consoles. Matthew didn't even have time to sit down, he just paced around the bridge, looking at what everybody was doing and tried to come up with a plan.

The hatch leading up to the bridge opened and Jaroslav climbed in, alone.

'Nobody from Command,' he said simply, not sounding very disappointed. Matt figured that it was probably because that left them two as the only command cadets on the ship. 'The others have gathered in the cargo bay, life support cleared it up already.'

Matt nodded and returned to pacing the bridge. With his mind searching for any solution, his body subconsciously took him to the station that he was almost as familiar with as the command chair. He looked down at the readouts, did a double take, and then stared at Alex.

'Strange right?' she muttered, both to herself and Matt. 'I can't make sense of it either.'

Niklas heard this and asked what was going on.

'According to these readings, we are traveling at warp 9.9986.'

'In tow?' Steven also heard. 'That's impossible.'

'The warp shear should tear us into pieces,' Alex shook her head confusedly.

'Not necessarily,' Kajsa had spoken again, having remained silent since her last speech. 'If their shields were strong enough, they could extend them around both ships. It's been done at medium to high warp, but never anything beyond warp 8.'

'These guys have already shown us that they have much more advanced technology, I think we can assume that the consoles are telling the truth,' Matthew shrugged, but then it hit him. In that split-second, a plan had materialized.

'Steve,' Mat began. 'Could you run down to engineering and bring me Ryan, ASAP.' Steven looked at him in confusion for a moment, but then ran off without question.

'Matthew?' Alex asked, with equal confusion.

'I've got a plan…'

**

* * *

**

_Starfleet academy, the largest non-commercial complex on Earth and only the second man-made object that can be seen from orbit, is considered by many to be the greatest achievement of mankind. It produces countless talents each year to join the best of the best in the United Federation of Planets: Starfleet._

_With the recent threats of the Borg and Dominion, and the weakened state of the Federation, that need for excellence has become ever more dire. It will be up to the next generation to protect Earth, to protect the paradise that humanity has had over five millennia to perfect._

* * *

Ryan stood before the main diagnostics screen of the Discovery's Warp 9 engine. Although he and T'Vral made some progress in restoring the warp field, it always collapsed about half way through the startup procedure and he had a very strong inclination to bang his head against the warp drive until either his head, or the generator gave way.

Considering that there was hardly any square centimeter of the engine that wasn't damaged, it was a miracle they even got secondary power online. The repairs in just engineering would take days, or even weeks for a fully trained repair crew. Ryan was confident that with T'Vral's help, they were capable of fixing most of the major damage the aliens had caused, they'd done similar things in training, but he didn't even want to guess how long it could take the two of them to fix the entire ship. The first years would have to learn fast.

Ryan had to admire the way she was handling them. T'Vral was very patient, taking the time to explain things that she could do herself in just moments. It slowed them down, but if they were to survive, they couldn't run engineering in two forever.

T'Vral finished explaining something to the first years and they immediately started working in teams of two, then she walked over to Ryan.

'Have you made any progress with the startup procedure?'

'A scan during the last test showed that something is interfering with the establishment of the low-level ionization that precedes step thirteen of the startup process. Only with everything that's not working down here, it's hard to say what's causing it.'

'Perhaps we should systematically eliminate each component involved,' T'Vral suggested.

'That would take days,' Ryan frowned. 'Besides, I doubt the ionization will be the last of our troubles.'

'The readouts don't indicate any other major problems with the startup procedure,' T'Vral pointed out.

'We can't be sure about that. And if we spend a day searching for a spent injector that isn't really spent, we'll be back to square one.'

'Square one?'

'The beginning,' Ryan couldn't help smiling.

'There is no evidence to suggest a systematic elimination will not solve the problem.'

'Systematic elimination is fine if you're looking for one faulty component, not one particular faulty one amidst a dozen.'

T'Vral almost frowned. Was he actually arguing… with a Vulcan? No, not really. He wasn't really arguing, he just didn't understand how Vulcans could get so far relying on logic alone.

'We aren't going to solve this following the textbooks,' Ryan spoke again.

'What do you suggest?'

'What do you think is causing the shutdown?' Ryan asked.

'I do not know. There is no evidence…' but Ryan interrupted her.

'I know there isn't,' he looked at the readouts again, 'but what do you think is causing it? What do your instincts tell you?'

She looked at him again, her features emotionless. 'Logic…' she began again.

'Won't help us here,' he said exasperatedly. 'Just give me your best guess.'

'Guessing is not in my nature,' T'Vral promptly replied, as if returning an automated response.

Steven suddenly appeared in the doorway to engineering.

'Ryan, Matt needs you on the bridge!'

Ryan didn't hesistate and immediately ran towards Steve.

'Your best guess, T'Vral,' Ryan called back to her as he disappeared behind the automated doors.

* * *

Matthew was still thinking about the details of his plan when Ryan appeared on the bridge.

'You called?' the engineer asked as soon as Matt turned his attention to him.

'How does it look down there?' Matthew asked, still deep in thought.

'We're in bad shape,' Ryan knew that going into the details would be pointless and seeing as he wasn't very good with words, he couldn't think of any way to simplify things.

Matt smiled at him encouragingly. He knew they were clearly beyond what would qualify as 'bad shape'. They were heading at Warp 9.9986 in an unknown direction. Decks 3 and 6 were holding together only by the emergency forcefields which themselves were already under strain way beyond Starfleet regulations. The warp core was offline, shields and weapons were down and they were operating on a skeleton crew of mostly first year cadets who had just entered Starfleet Academy.

'Any progress with the warp engine?'

'It's like playing the lottery,' Ryan shrugged. 'It could take days if we work on it systematically, but we might just get lucky.'

Matthew frowned. At this speed, in a few days they could be well outside federation space. And he'd need the warp engine online for his plan to succeed.

'Say you can get the warp engine back online, what speed are we looking at here?'

'I can give you warp one… 1.2 maybe… then the ship will start falling apart. The engine itself is battered, but should be capable of medium warp or even high warp in short intervals, but the hull…' he didn't need to continue, the flashing MSD on the back wall of the bridge said it all.

'What about shields and weapons?'

'We can get them online as soon as the warp core is active, though considering the state of the ship, I wouldn't recommend using them unless we want the recoil to rip through our hull.'

'I've got a plan to get us out of this mess,' Matthew finally started to explain, 'but it's a long shot.'

'Anything is good from where I'm sitting,' Steve couldn't help smiling even in such a grave situation. Matthew returned the smile and began.

'We're in between their shields right now. If we can get a shot at their tractor emitter, we'll break the connection between the two ships.'

'And leave the slipstream,' Alex pointed out.

'Exactly,' Matthew continued. 'At this speed, they'll be light years away before they can stop energizing and turn around. If we can jump to warp at a random angle, we'll be out of sensor range by the time they return.'

Matthew waited while his friends stared at him.

'I guess it could work,' Steven muttered finally.

'We're still forgetting one little problem,' Ryan felt like he was pointing out the obvious. 'How do you plan to fire while being tractored? And besides, who knows if this ship could even handle the recoil?'

'Ah, but that's where the rest of my plan comes in.'

Confused faces stared back at him.

'Nova class starships are equipped with a waverider shuttle attached to the underside of the hull. Unlike opening the launch bay doors, detaching a piece of our hull won't be affected by the tractor beam.'

'I still can't see where you're heading,' Ryan shook his head. 'The waverider is a planetary research shuttle meant to operate in an atmosphere. It doesn't have weapons or warp capability.'

'The outside pressure won't be as low as in the vacuum of space while we are within the extended shields of the alien ship, after that, we'll just have to risk it. We need to reinforce the hull plating and upgrade the waverider's shields with one of those generators we found in the cargo bay.'

'And then one of the torpedo launchers?' Steven added, catching on.

'Exactly,' Matthew looked back at Ryan. 'Think you can do it?'

'It'll be tough accessing the waverider from within the ship, especially since the under-side basically forms a part of the bow of the ship, but I think it can be done.'

'As soon as you're done with the warp core, get T-Vral and any of the more able first years to help you, but I'd still like someone experienced in engineering or at least close to it at all times. This ship is still falling apart and an upgraded waverider will be of no use to us if the entire ship blows.'

'So what do you think?' Matt turned back to the others.

'It's a great plan,' Kajsa and Niklas said in unison, and the others laughed. Then Kajsa continued alone, 'but…' Matthew knew where this was heading, and his stomach clenched.

'Without warp capability, whoever pilots the waverider will have no chance of escaping the aliens.'

'I know,' Matthew said with a sad determination. 'That's why I'm going to pilot it. It's my plan, my responsibility.'

'Matt, you can't be thinking…' Alex was on the verge of tears.

'Like I said, it's my responsibility,' he paused. 'And besides, I'm the most experienced fighter pilot here. And trust me, it's going to take a hell of a day to navigate between our ships and destroy the tractor emitter with a single shot.'

'Matt…' Alex looked at the others for support.

'They might just beam me off Al,' his voice might not have shown it, but even he didn't believe that to be true, 'and we're going after them anyways.'

The others stared at him again.

'If there are any prisoners, we aren't just going to let them get away with it.'

Nobody seemed too willing to say any more.

'Then I guess we'll put it to a vote…' Matthew smiled weakly, waiting for a show of hands. But none went up.

'I know it's a gamble but…' he began, misreading the gesture, 'but it's our only shot.'

'I don't think you understand Matt,' Steven looked at the others. 'The motion is already passed.'

Now it was Matthew's turn to look confused.

'Steven is right,' Alex still looked shaken up by what Matthew was planning to do.

'Exactly,' Niklas and Kajsa said together again, and then added as an afterthought, 'Captain.'

* * *

Matthew and Cyanne stood opposite each other in the Captain's ready room. The dark haired girl had appeared on the bridge moments after Jaroslav went down to the cargo bay to gather first years to help Ryan with the waverider upgrades.

'You don't have to do this,' she had sobbed. 'Tell him that it's crazy!' But none of the others had spoken. An arrow seemed to pierce Mat's heart when he saw her standing at the back of the bridge, glaring at his friends with so much hatred. 'How can you let him do this?' she had said finally, as Matt led her to probably the only undamaged part of the Discovery. For some reason, she had looked directly at Alex, and the other girl burst into tears as well.

Now they were standing opposite each other, Cyanne's face full of tears, and Matt's forced into a look of composed determination. Neither had spoken since they left the bridge, but words weren't necessary. It broke Matthew's heart to see the beautiful girl so upset, but he was a Starfleet Cadet, a future commanding officer, and there was no way he could send one of his crew on a suicide mission.

Then she began to apologize, and the arrow that was now planted in his heart seemed to dig deeper. 'I'm sorry,' she cried. 'I just…' but the rest if the sentence was drowned in tears.

She cursed herself for not being able to handle her emotions, cursed her inability to muster any sort of encouragement and most of all, cursed her father: the reason why she couldn't handle her emotions. She was making it worse, making it harder for him. Why couldn't she tell him she understood? That she knew the feeling of being responsible for someone else's life and how hard it was to give that responsibility to someone else.

'I'll be ok,' Matt lied. 'I promise I'll be ok.' He vaguely remembered Alex telling him that he was the only person she ever knew that never broke his promise, and the arrow plunged even deeper.

Cyanne looked at him through her red and puffy eyes, her long hair sticking to her face, and limply raised her arms. Matt closed the distance between them in a flash and closed his arms around her waist in a tight embrace. She sobbed into his shoulder and he could feel her kiss his neck gently.

Finally, he couldn't hold it in anymore. 'I'm so scared,' he whispered quietly.

Cyanne leaned back slightly to look him in the eyes, and then kissed him gently, nibbling his lower lip. Matthew closed his eyes and pulled her into another big hug.

When they reemerged on the bridge, Matthew was back to his calm and determined look. Nobody would know just how close Matthew was, for the first time in his life, to letting something break his strong will, and that was how it was supposed to be. He was their captain now, and he had no business being weak. And from then on, whenever his friends (and it would be many times) would wonder just how it is possible that Matthew is always in control, that he never loses his composure, he would think back to this day, the day he became a man.

* * *

'Your best guess.' The sentence echoed in her mind as she looked over the diagnostics. The list went on and on and although she had eliminated almost half of the possibilities and assigned probability values to all the others, there were still over twenty that were just as probable to be the cause of the fault in the startup procedure. Whenever she tried to make what Ryan called 'a guess', her mind twisted back to some sort of logical evaluation or analysis. She was simply incapable of such an irrational action.

Finally, she came up with a way of making a guess. She assigned each possibility a number from one to twenty and asked one of the first years to choose one. Fourteen. The tertiary phase injector.

'Alright then' she thought and began disconnecting the said component before restarting the sequence with it offline to see the effects, but then stopped herself. No. The tertiary phase injector didn't seem right. But why? Once again, she felt herself almost frown. Actually, she had merely moved her lips a millimeter or so in no particular direction, but the reaction was unwanted and illogical nevertheless.

She walked over to the first year that was recalibrating one of the minor EPS conduits and asked him to choose again. Ten. She punched in 'reverse flow stabilizers', somehow that felt right, somehow it made sense, but then she shook her head.

'This is foolish,' she thought and started eliminating all of the possibilities starting from number one.

* * *

She was at number two when Ryan appeared in engineering.

'We've got more work,' he muttered and explained Matthew's plan.

It seemed that T'Vral was the only person on the entire ship that wasn't troubled by it. He guessed that it was probably most 'logical'.

'How have you been doing?' he asked, pointing at the warp core.

'I've narrowed it down to twenty possibilities. The first two have not proved to be correct.'

Ryan shook his head. 'I wonder if she even tried,' she thought. 'Then noticed the 'reverse flow stabilizers' written on a pad that lay on the floor. And yes, it completely made sense!'

'What's that?' he asked.

She glanced at the pad, 'Nothing.'

'No, no, that's it!' he said in triumph.

'It is a silly guess,' she reached down to pick the datapad up.

'You felt that it was right too, didn't you?' he said with a smirk.

'I'm a Vulcan. I don't _feel_ anything.'

'Well, lets just try it then,' Ryan didn't understand where that teasing streak had come from. He hardly ever spoke, let alone teased. Maybe it was because this was the first time in his life that he could speak to someone about engineering. He never knew what to say, but with T'Vral, especially with a beat up ship, there was always something to talk about.

'If you must.' She looked down at him. 'Though I don't see any reason why we shouldn't do this in alphabetical order.'

'We don't have the time. We're traveling at high warp so we can't be sure how soon we'll reach our destination,' Ryan pointed out. 'Besides, we've got a lot more work to do… on the waverider.'

When Ryan had told her of Matt's plan, T'Vral had been particularly interested in the parts about the waverider. She had almost looked eager to star working on it, and stopped him to call it an 'ingenious idea', so he figured he'd use it to prod her even more.

'I will take it offline then, you prepare the procedure,' she finally gave way.

* * *

'I've got some news,' Alex spoke from the Conn console.

'Al?' Matt was now sitting in the Captain's seat, bringing up the Conn station's diagnostics on his chair's universal console.

'I know where we're heading.'

Matt looked at the readouts again, though he didn't see any clear destination. Maybe that was because he was a command officer and not a Flight Control specialist. Sure, he could pilot a fighter like few others, but these were the things that reminded him that he belonged in command and not in probably his favourite station.

'The general direction is towards the center of the galaxy,' Matt had noticed that, but even with the much more star-heavy space, he still couldn't make out a single star they may be heading towards.

'Well, don't keep it to yourself,' Steven laughed from his own console.

'I've checked the Starfleet records on the Discovery. Only one Starfleet probe has ever gone in this direction and it scanned a massive space station in between a trio of stars. If what I'm reading is true, the only trinary system in that general direction is directly in front of us, about five hundred light years away.'

'Which means at this speed, we could reach there in less than a week.' Matthew added.

'Actually, that might be a good thing,' Kajsa spoke again in one of her rare speeches. 'If it was any further, it would take us a very long time to get back. Even if we can somehow repair everything and run away, the journey home is a couple of weeks already at warp 7. That system is still reasonably close to the borders of the federation, but far enough to give us time to break free.'

Matthew smiled at her, wondering if she had thought and calculated in her head so quickly, or known about their destination all along.

Suddenly the ship shook violently.

Matthew immediately called for a status report, and everybody could feel the tension as Steven looked over his console.

'It's not them,' he said quickly and everybody relaxed. 'And they didn't notice either.'

Matt was about to send someone down to engineering to find out what happened, when the ship shook again, much more gently this time and he could feel a very familiar hum.

* * *

'A mere coincidence,' T'Vral said calmly, as the warp field stabilized, then throbbed violently, but Ryan was almost jumping around with joy.

'Hell it was!' he shouted and the other first years cheered.

He then quickly turned the engine back off and began removing the damaged component.

'You will need a micro-calipers to remove the…' she began, but Ryan didn't reach for the toolbox. Instead he merely used his hands to remove the minute safety.

'How?' she began again. 'Even a Vulcan's steady hand…' This time she couldn't hide the surprise in her voice.

Ryan turned around and gave her a weak smile. It was more of a pained attempt than anything else.

'Courtesy of having prosthetic arms… can't get shocked either,' but all of the previous cheeriness had left his voice.

'I am… sorry,' she paused before the last word.

He didn't speak for a long time and even T'Vral realized that she had touched a subject he was not comfortable with. 'There is a replacement in the Cargo bay,' T'Vral towered behind him. 'Should I go and get it?'

He appreciated the gesture, but then said: 'No, that's ok,' pulling the component out half way and starting working on the second safeties. 'If you want to, you can start working on the waverider, though. I'll go down and grab it myself.'

She nodded and as soon as she left, Ryan stopped working. Why had he done it? He liked T'Vral's company, even liked how emotions came as hardly to her as a public speech would to him, so why did it bother him as much? Surely she didn't mean it in a bad way. Probably because she never felt anything at all. Because someone who never felt could never understand how much it hurt not to be able to feel again. Sure, this was a different type of feeling, and the mechanics in his prosthetics had all of the nerves a regular hand or leg would, but it never felt right.

He dismissed his thoughts and continued his work.

* * *

That night, they had all slept in the cargo bay. Jaroslav had prepared it in advance with some of the first years, and Matthew was glad to know how well everybody had worked all day. They were a team, a crew, and had begun acting as such. From then on, they began working in three eight hour shifts, with the bridge officers doubling for sixteen, as was the procedure on all Starfleet vessels.

Two days later, they were finally ready. Decks 3 and 6 were temporarily sealed, the warp engine was online and the waverider upgraded with a photon torpedo launcher, shields and reinforced hull. They were still over a hundred light years away from the station, but time was running short.

Now they all stood in the cargo bay as Matt went over the plan one last time.

'Once the tractor beam is down, we'll have less than a second to drop out of warp before the slipstream tears us apart. Once we're down to a sustainable warp speed, turn to bearing 121 mark 115 and run for it. Ryan has already programmed the main computer to do it, but I'm relying on you if the computer fails.' He looked at his friends, then back to the crowd. 'You should all brace yourselves against the containers like before, it will be quite a ride.'

Some of the first years looked terrified, but the majority, mostly those that had worked on the bridge or in engineering, wore similar looks of determination to those of the bridge officers.

'If all goes well, we'll rendez-vous at these coordinates,' the string of numbers appeared on one of the wall consoles in big red writing. 'If they find you somehow and give chase, head for Federation space as fast as you can. Though remember that surrender might be the only option.'

Now all of the faces looking at him were grave.

'We can do this guys,' Matthew clenched his fist. 'I know we can.'

* * *

Matt descended down the Jeffries tube leading from the fourth deck to the waverider. His arms tingled with anticipation as he firmly placed his hands on the hatch and pulled it clockwise. He heard a muted click as the safety was released and a soft hiss from the hatch told him the other side was safe and pressurized. He then pulled the handle the other way and the hatch opened. He looked down at the outer hull of the waverider. The upgrades were evident even from the narrow view the portholes in the hatch provided. He punched in the code for the door and the access port for the waverider opened.

The inside was slightly bigger than that of the standard Starfleet shuttle. Similar to a Danube Class runabout, it had two command chairs at the front and a transport pad and science station calibrated for planetary research at the back.

Matthew sat in the main command seat and immediately noticed the provisional wirework and controls Ryan had set up. Despite his timid nature, the young engineer was clearly far beyond third year level at the academy in terms of technical knowledge and expertise. Matt figured that even most commissioned officers wouldn't have been able to modify the waverider as quickly as Ryan did. T-Vral was a great help too, even Jaroslav seemed to have overcome his initial resentment and was handling the first years quite well. In fact, the thing Matt was the most proud of was the resolve and determination of the crew… his crew.

'Let's do it,' he thought to himself and punched in the launch code. The controls lit up and the viewscreen filled with the image of streaming stars.

He pressed his comm badge and spoke clearly through the intercom. 'I'm ready guys. Release the docking clamps.'

All he heard was silence on the other end, and then a wavering voice answered: 'Docking clamps released. Good luck Matt.' Alex could scarcely form the words.

'Be back before you know it,' he said cheerily.

'We'll hold you to that…' Steven chimed in. 'Captain,' he added as an afterthought.

Matt smiled and started the launch procedure. Any trace of fear or nervousness immediately left him as he felt the impulse engines come online. He was now in his element, and his years of fight experience kicked in. The waverider gave a violent jerk as it detached from the underside of the ship's hull. The young pilot could feel the immense pressure on the reinforced hull as the shuttle flew in space for the first time. Had the shields not been extended around both ships, the warp slipstream would have torn the waverider into a million pieces in a matter of seconds.

* * *

'Something is wrong,' Alex watched as the waverider moved into position, 'I can feel it.'

Jaroslav gave her a scathing look from the captain's chair, but as soon as she had said it, he too realized that the tractor emitter was already in the waverider's firing arc.

'What's going on? Why isn't he firing?'

* * *

Matt's left hand flew to the weapon controls and, in the fraction of a second when he both made the decision to fire and thought everything was going almost too well, the viewscreen exploded. Even the dampening field on the command chair meant to keep officers firmly in their chairs during flight wasn't enough and Matt was thrown into the back of the waverider.

Matt's eyes closed for only a moment and he thought that he saw a face so very similar to his, but older and unfamiliar. Then they opened and, even though his body was screaming out to him, he pulled himself up. What happened? If the aliens had seen him and fired that giant ion cannon, then it would have done a lot more than destroy the viewscreen.

He climbed back into the command chair and looked over the readouts. There was no indication that anything other than his viewscreeen exploding had gone wrong. They haven't spotted him yet.

For a moment he thought that the whole plan had gone sour. Without the viewscreen, he had no way of targeting the tractor emitter, and then he remembered an old trick his flight instructor had taught him.

With a flick on an arm, he turned on the Comm system and hailed in every direction. It was only a matter of time before they realized he was there and he had no other option. The hails bounced back off the hulls of the Discovery and the alien ship and the hailing system popped up a diagram with thousands of ship icons all around him, forming a rough diagram of the area around him. He stared at the image of the alien vessel, then made out the area from which he remembered the tractor beam came out of… aimed… and fired.

The others at the Discovery had to shield their eyes from the blinding explosion of the tractor emitter. As all of the energy focused at its tip was released, Matthew felt the waverider being thrown back, ricocheting off the Discovery and flying off at a random angle.

* * *

'It worked,' Jaroslav screamed as the computer immediately turned them towards the target coordinates and fired the warp engines.

For several minutes they all just sat there, afraid to break the silence. Finally, after almost ten minutes, Jaroslav turned to Kajsa.

'Are they following us?' he said in a weak voice.

'Still heading in their original direction,' she replied in an even weaker one. 'They've stopped energizing, but the momentum is still taking them further and further…' then she paused. 'Out of sensor range.'

'That doesn't mean they can't see us, or Matt,' the acting Captain said, but he couldn't completely hide the hope that this wasn't true in his tone.

* * *

Matt woke up on top of the forward console of the waverider. His head throbbing and something warm tricking down his forehead. He forced himself to sit up and the world around him spun. He could feel the pulsing of blood in his head and his eyes darkened.

When he came to again, he fully expected to be looking at the blue shores of some heavenly plane, or possibly an interrogation chamber in an alien ship. The last thing he expected, was to be leaning back in that same chair, his head still throbbing, but still alive.He checked to see whether the alien ship was in sensor range, and when he didn't see it, punched in a course for their rendez-vous. He didn't have the strength to take a closer look at them and find out why, but if he did, he would have seen that the shockwave of the blast that had destroyed the tractor emitter had thrown him far off course, in a very similar fashion to what the Discovery was supposed to do.

As he reached up to feel the hard scab that had formed on his forehead, he prayed. He prayed that his survival didn't mean the death or capture of his crew, his friends.

* * *

They waited at the arranged coordinated for over an hour, but there was still no sign of Matt. Both Alex and Kajsa were crying over their consoles and Steven looked pale. Even Jaroslav, who had wanted to celebrate the success of the plan, suddenly realized that their escape came at a terrible loss.

He turned on the Comm system and told the news to the people in the cargo bay, then dreaded his decision.

Cyanne had asked the dreaded question. And he had answered…

'No sign of Matt.'

She replied but her voice was so full of tears that they couldn't make out a single word. After a while, she gave up trying. She couldn't even close the comm. connection and they all just sat on the bridge, those that weren't on the verge of tears themselves, listening to her sobs.

Then suddenly, Kajsa stopped crying.

'I'm picking up an impulse signature,' she beamed from the Science console, her voice breaking. 'It's the waverider!'

'Head in his direction, half impulse,' Jaroslav commanded. 'Alex, prepare the docking sequence.'

Alex and Cyanne had also stopped crying when they heard this, and the first immediately did as ordered.

* * *

Matthew's eyes were only half open as he felt the waverider reattach itself to the Discovery He didn't know whether it was a dream. Everything had worked out. They were all safe. He finally let go and let himself all into unconsciousness.

When he woke up a few hours later, he was looking into the dark pools that were Cyanne's eyes. She was beaming at him, her eyes red from tears.

'He's awake,' she said to the others, and Matthew realized that all of his friends had gathered around him.

'Well done guys,' he managed to whisper and all of the tension that had built up over the past few days was finally released and everyone began cheering.


	8. 1x08 Decisions

Episode 1x08 – Decisions

'Status report,' Matthew asked, looking up from a bed in sickbay. He was no longer dressed in his old cadet's uniform, but the newest version of the Starfleet command uniform. Since the Dominion Wars, Starfleet had further reduced the stress on position colours, especially that of science and medical. The traditional blue uniform, that was meant to protect non-combat personnel, had proved to be more of a big 'shoot me' sign, than a means of protection. The latest uniforms were all almost identical, except for the colour of the inside collar and a small strip on the wrist. In Matt's case, these were red, signifying command. He wore no rank insignia, since he was still technically a cadet, even though the others had elected him as their captain.

'We're in bad shape, but we'll have primary power up in a few hours,' Ryan said, melancholy and triumph strangely intermixed in his tone. 'T'Vral is in engineering right now.'

'Comm?' Matthew asked.

'An hour? Maybe two…' Ryan shrugged.

'We have to contact Starfleet,' Matthew was slowly regaining his strength. As he sat up, he first noticed that Steven, Alex, and Kajsa were all there as well. He started to smile, but another thought interrupted him. 'Who's on the bridge?'

'Don't worry,' Alex smiled back at him. 'Jaroslav is there.' She paused for a moment, considering what she'd just said. 'Oh, and Niklas is watching over him,' she laughed and the others joined in.

'Besides, it's Deck Five that's the problem,' Ryan continued.

'Deck Four?' Matthew had a vague idea about what was located on deck five of their eight deck starship, but waited for the others to explain. They had much more time to get acquainted with the Discovery than he did, having spent the better part of the week in sickbay. Ryan spoke first.

'This ship used to have a small warp-eight engine, to fulfill its purpose as a short-term planetary research vessel, but even then, it spanned three decks from four to eight. When it was refitted for the war, a lot of the science labs on deck five had to be removed to make space for the more powerful engine.'

Matthew knew that deck five had been depressurized since they took command of the ship and he could see where this conversation was heading.

'Although engineering and all of the critical locations are ok, main warp core access is on deck five. I think that's the reason why we're having so much trouble sustaining the warp core.'

'It seems that the alien ship knew exactly where to hit us,' this time, it was Kajsa that joined in. 'I only recall one major blow during the battle after we transported from the freighter.'

Matt, still sporting the bruises from that encounter, could swear that there were more, but when he thought about it more, there really was only one 'major' blow. Everything after that was just cover fire.

'They probably went straight for deck five after the shields were down,' Steven was of course the combat expert. 'Once the warp core was unstable…'

'Do you remember the lights flickering?' Alex interjected, then looked back at him sheepishly.

'Once the warp core was unstable, they transported the crew of the Discovery aboard their vessel, checked the areas where the interference was too high, and then decided to tow the wreck home.'

'That's assuming they're going home…' Kajsa pointed out.

'Right,' Ryan continued. 'But what this means for us, is that we need to secure Deck Five.'

'We obviously have to do this without the first year cadets. None of them have the training,' Matthew thought out loud.

'And somebody has to stay in engineering and on the bridge to coordinate the efforts,' was there a hopeful note in Kajsa's voice when she mentioned the bridge? Matthew wasn't sure.

'There are eight of us qualified enough for a zero-g spacewalk.'

'I thought…' Alex looked over to the next bunk. Cyanne lay asleep, having spent several days in a row caring for Matthew and others that were injured.

'I'm not counting Cyanne and Moreena, they went to Starfleet Medical.'

'Oh…'

'Ryan and I can go in and check things out,' Steven offered. 'T'Vral can stay in engineering and Jaroslav and the others can stay on the bridge.'

Matthew smiled, 'Aren't you forgetting someone?'

'You're supposed to stay in sickbay for another day at least…' Steven paused and smirked. 'Cyanne's orders.'

'You've got to be kidding!' Matthew protested. 'I've been lying here for a year.'

'We'll let you know how it turns out,' they were already filing out.

'But…' Matthew looked at them incredulously. 'I'm your captain!' he shouted after them as they disappeared down the corridor.

**

* * *

**

_Starfleet academy, the largest non-commercial complex on Earth and only the second man-made object that can be seen from orbit, is considered by many to be the greatest achievement of mankind. It produces countless talents each year to join the best of the best in the United Federation of Planets: Starfleet._

_With the recent threats of the Borg and Dominion, and the weakened state of the Federation, that need for excellence has become ever more dire. It will be up to the next generation to protect Earth, to protect the paradise that humanity has had over five millennia to perfect.

* * *

_

He was half way to the door when a voice called out from behind him.

'Where do you think you're going?' Cyanne was sitting up on her bed. She had bags under her eyes, but the look she was giving him clearly said that she was ready to jump to her feet and restrain him if she had to.

'I'm alright,' he protested.

'That's for me to decide,' she countered.

'They need me on the bridge, something big is going down.'

'And naturally, you can't miss out on that,' she was frowning now. 'When there's danger, I can count on you to jump in, head-first.'

'I'm captain, I have to lead…' Cyanne opened her mouth to retort. 'And besides, I'm only going to the bridge, what can possibly happen?'

'A bulkhead could fall on you on the way,' she pouted. 'And with the state that your spine is in right now…'

'You're making that up,' Matthew smiled gently and Cyanne blushed a dark red.

'You want to come up and watch?' Suddenly, her face lit up and Matthew realized that she was probably waiting for that offer all along.

'I've never been on the bridge of a starship,' she beamed at him as they walked towards the turbolift.'

* * *

'… can you see that on your left?' Jaroslav was looking at the viewscreen, where two people in suits were slowly shuffling about.

'Affirmative,' Steven's voice buzzed through the intercom.

'It's the secondary power source for the emergency force fields.'

'Got it,' Steven muttered back.

'Captain on deck,' Alex noticed him and Cyanne enter.

Jaroslav looked around, not quite able to hide his disappointment, but then got up and moved from the main command seat to the one right next to it, where the executive officer sat.

Matthew pointed Cyanne towards one of the science consoles and then took his place on the bridge. Eyes met him as he walked to the center and the small platform that elevated the commanding officers above the rest for good tactical overview. Steven was missing from the security station and Matthew realized that they hadn't yet all met on the bridge at any point. Somebody was always down in engineering, or elsewhere. In this case, Deck Five.

'Continue Jaroslav,' he said as he sat down. The other commanding officer nodded and turned back to the viewscreen.

'We still have the issue of calling Starfleet Command,' Matthew had been thinking about this most of the time he'd spent in sickbay. 'Tell T'Vral that comm. is still our first priority.'

Niklas immediately sent the message and updated his Ops charts.

Matt brought up several of these charts on his command chair screen and looked over them. He'd seen fragments down in sickbay, when the others had reported to him, but only now did he start to appreciate the work of his Ops officer. Niklas was very thorough, having delegated the ship's many resources several weeks ahead. The only two things that troubled Matt were the call sheets for the ten third year cadets and supervision of the first years. If the ship was going to function in any stable way, two bridge officers simply couldn't baby-sit the cadets all the time, while still double-shifting eight hour shifts. Everything seemed to be working in engineering, since Ryan and T'Vral could always delegate some minor tasks for the cadets to do, but there would come a time when all of the others would have to contribute as well. The ship was already running at half the optimal crew. Matthew filed some of these thoughts to the back of his mind, thinking a rigorous training schedule would be much more effective than supervision in the long run, and turned his attention back to his two friends on the viewscreen.

'Secondary power is dead, just as primary was,' Ryan said from above the conduit.

'Any idea how it happened?' Matthew asked.

'Couldn't have been from a weapon blast, all the circuits look fine… they're just not working.'

'It was probably some sort of jamming weapon,' Steven stood behind Ryan, looking over his shoulder. 'I've heard about such technology existing, but that's about everything I know about it.' The comm. line went silent. 'Sorry Matt.'

'That's ok Steve,' Matthew encouraged him. 'I'm sure you'd have known all about it by graduation.'

This was bound to have happened sooner or later. Matthew knew that his crew simply didn't have the knowledge or experience a typical Starfleet crew had, but that wasn't going to stop them. Perhaps Kajsa would know something. The depth of knowledge she hid behind her shy exterior often surprised him.

'Any theories?' Matthew turned to his left, but noticed that Kajsa was almost staring at the viewscreen, far too busy to be paying attention.

'They'll be fine,' he comforted her. 'Steven and I have gone space-walking a hundred times. This should be no problem at all.'

* * *

Steven stopped looking at the mysteriously offline power conduit and looked at Ryan. He immediately switched off the intercom and spoke directly to the young mechanic.

'You ok?'

'Just the feeling that the only thing between me and space is this fragile thing,' he tapped on the visor of his suit.

'So, any idea what could have done it?'

Ryan shook his head. 'Unless…'

He turned the intercom back on.

'I think this may be the work of a computer virus. Computer? Run a diagnostic for any non-starfleet software in the current memory banks.'

Several seconds of silence.

'There is no software in the main computer databanks of non-Starfleet origin, would you like to change the query?'

'Computer. Any suspicious computer activity in the power consoles on Deck Five?'

'Deck Five computer running optimally.'

'Except its not,' he said to Steven. 'It's not running at all.'

'Which explains why we've been unable to turn it back on,' Steven gave him a large 'space-suit' thumbs up. 'The computer thinks its working fine.'

'Computer. Reboot all computer systems on Deck Five.'

'That is unadvisable. Deck Five contains primary warp access. A temporary shut-down in zero gravity could endanger warp stability.'

'Ryan?' it was Matt up on the bridge. 'What's your status down there?'

'I think we've identified the problem, Captain. We'll need to manually replace the missing hatch. Once we're done, we'll be able to reboot the system and get everything back online. Can't think of anything we might be able to do in case it happens again though. We might have to seal access to the warp core until we can figure that out.'

'Ok, get to work…'

* * *

Kajsa no longer stood by her station and was pacing nervously by the main turbolft, when it finally opened. She jumped at the first person and hugged hard.

Matt smiled slightly and tried to imagine the look on Ryan's face beneath that helmet.

'Hey, why does he get a hug?' Steven had removed his helmet.

A console in front of Matthew beeped and he turned to Alex's station. 'T'Vral says core containment is finally within Starfleet regulations. Comm and other systems should be up in moments.'

'Good work everyone!' Matthew beamed. 'You've all done a heck of a job.' Matthew took the time to look every member of his bridge crew in the eyes, finally grinning at Cyanne who smiled right back. 'Which makes what I'm going to tell you next so much harder.'

Cyanne's look of joy was suddenly replaced by one of confusion.

'We aren't going home,' he said simply.

'What!?' Jaroslav barked.

'We're going to follow them.' Another short sentence and after he'd said it, he gave his friends more time to think about what he'd said.

'Matt… Captain… this is crazy,' Steven still hadn't moved from just outside the turbolift, but now Kajsa had an arm around his waist. 'Starfleet would never…'

'Leave Starfleet up to me,' Matthew said simply, and noticed the furtive look from Alex. 'The point is: are we going to leave the crew of the Discovery aboard an alien vessel? Aboard an alien vessel that attacked an unarmed freighter with no provocation? We are several hundred light years from Federation territory. Even if Starfleet sends their fastest ship, it will still take them weeks to get here. We are only a few days away from the station. I'm not asking you to fight them again, that would be stupid. But we at least have to find out where they took them, and if anybody is still alive. We owe them that much.'

He paused. 'And besides, we are Starfleet…'

'Not yet,' Jaroslav pointed out.

'We've proved we can handle ourselves on our own. Everything that has happened over the last few days has reinforced my belief that we are meant to keep going, meant to push on, rather than retreat. The Federation, Starfleet, none of that will remain if people like us can't step up and do what's necessary.'

He paused again, this time for even longer, but nobody spoke up.

'I know we can do this,' he put a lot of stress on the 'know' and he meant it.

'Maybe we can, but the first years? All they've ever done was pass their entrance exams into the academy.'

'We're not going to back out of this and condemn any possible survivors just because we think all of us aren't ready. Yes, they don't have any Starfleet training, but as you've said, they've all passed their entrance exams, which means someone back in San Francisco believed that they have the potential to succeed. They're all talented people and all they need is some guidance and training, and we can see to it that they get both.'

Was he winning them over? Matthew looked around, and the only face that was still nowhere near convinced was Kajsa's.

'I know some of you want to go back,' he tried not to look at her when he said it, but Steven gave him an angry look anyways, 'but whether it is now, or a few years later, you're going to have to stand up on your own. You're going to have to make that tough decision. So why not do it now, do it while we can still save someone…'

'Let's pretend for a moment that we agree. Starfleet will never let us…' Jaroslav wasn't about to support Matt in anything. 'And we've got to tell them. If we don't, it will be the end of our Starfleet careers.'

'I think I can do something about that,' Matthew looked at Alex and their eyes met. 'But I have to know everyone is behind me.'

'Comm is up!' Alex said from her console. 'There is a priority one message coming on multiple frequencies.'

'That's them,' Matthew said simply. 'Enough talk.'

* * *

Matthew decided to give everybody an hour to think about it, after which they would make the decision and tell it to the first years.

Ryan had just told T'Vral about everything that happened on the bridge and was walking around engineering nervously. She had remained silent until the very end, when she politely thanked him and returned to running maintenance checks on the warp reactor.

He hadn't expected a reaction, but at least saying something longer than two words would have been nice. He had nobody on this ship to talk to. Normally, he would have gone to Matt, but their captain had clearly already made up his mind. Alex and Steven were nice enough, but he still didn't feel comfortable talking to them when Matt wasn't around. And besides, Steven had his hands full with Kajsa. He'd seen them arguing on the way down to engineering.

He felt like a stranger on this ship, but then again, he felt like a stranger everywhere. He'd spent his first two years at Starfleet Academy isolated from the others. His connections with the teachers were often better than those with students and he had no friends to speak of. People tried. They often spoke to him, asked whether he wanted to go out the following weekend, but he'd always refused. He didn't know why, he just did. After a while they just gave up. But not Matt. Matthew insisted he come along on their adventure when they first met. He came back to him when those people started acting weirdly. He didn't give up on people. And he wasn't about to give up on the crew of this ship. Not the old crew that was probably on the way to a labor camp, or worse, and not the current crew.

Ryan joined T'Vral beside the warp field readouts and began analyzing the logs since they'd fixed the problem on Deck Five. He was in.

* * *

Alex closed the door to her quarters, her ears relaxing as the shouting from outside faded. She stood before the mirror and looked at her reflection. She removed the clip from her ponytail and freed her brown hair, letting it fall into her face.

She slowly removed her clothes, shivering slightly as the cool breeze from the air conditioning system passed over her.

When she left the sonic shower and looked back in the mirror, the first thing that she noticed was that her hair was straight. And even though it was a different colour and a lot shorter than the other girl's, it reminded Alex of Cyanne. She immediately ruffled a hand through her hair, making it as messy as possible and let out a single sob.

'I hate her,' she though. 'I hate that she has everything I don't. I hate that she loves Matt, and that he loves her. I hate her beautiful hair. I hate her smile, and how it can render every guy in the room speechless. I hate how emotional she is. And most of all, I hate that she's so kind, that in some way… I really want to like her.'

She sat on the bed, thinking that if they all went back right now, things might get back to normal. Cyanne would go back to Starfleet Medical, and Matthew would go back to spending all of his time with her. It was stupid and she knew it, but she couldn't help thinking about it anyways.

Suddenly, the door opened and Matt's face popped around the corner.

'What's u… Whoa!' he exclaimed and his head retracted.

Alex's hands shot up to cover herself and she let out a high-pitched yelp. She quickly got to her feet, looking over her shoulder, making sure the doorway was clear, and put on her cadet's uniform.

'You decent?' Matt called from around the corner.

'Uh-huh,' Alex muttered as she brought her hair back into a pony tail. 'Ever heard of knocking?'

'Sorry,' Matthew came in, the nervous look on his face and the clearly reddening cheeks causing a warm rush to run through Alex's body.

'Well, you remember it from now on,' she paused and gave him a fake angry look. 'You perv!'

They both laughed and sat down on opposite bunks.

'I missed this?' Matthew said a bit too solemnly.

'What?' Alex's eyes widened. 'You've seen me, you know, naked, before?'

Matthew laughed again. 'No, I meant us… laughing, you know…'

Alex hoped that all of the emotions that were surging inside her didn't show on her face.

'Me too,' she tried to keep her voice calm and her eyes flashed towards Matt, when her voice trembled slightly, but he didn't seem to notice.

'Alex I can't do this without you,' he said after a long pause.

Alex's heart almost skipped a beat. Was she really that important to him?

'You're my best friend Al. If I'm going crazy need to hear it from you…'

'Wha…' Alex stared at him in shock. 'Why do you think?'

'I'm about to risk the lives of forty people, thirty of which have barely even decided to follow a military career. What right do I have to ask them of them?'

'You're our Captain Matt. We trust you,' Alex asserted. 'I trust you.'

Matthew gave her a weak smile.

'Wherever you'll go… I'll follow,' Alex held back her tears. 'And I know that if any of the others knew you like I do, they would too.'

'Thank you Alex,' Matthew leaned forward from the bunk and gave her a long hug. 'You're still the best girl I know.'

Alex smiled into his shoulder, and drew a small heart on his back.

'And did I mention that you have really nice b… ow.' She hit him across the head.

'Hey, just kidding! What's with the third degree?'

'That's it? Really nice?' she said mockingly.

'Oh, so that's what it's about,' Matthew laughed. 'In that case, you have the most beautiful…' This time she actually bit into his shoulder.

'Enough,' she said strictly, but couldn't hide the blush that crept up her cheeks.

They laughed for a few moments and when the laughter died down sat in silence for almost the rest of the hour. Matt was contemplating everything he had to do in the next few hours. The task would be hard, but with his friends on his side, he knew it could be done. He was just thinking about what he would tell Starfleet Command if they did all decide to go ahead with the plan, when the door slid open and Steven entered.

* * *

'Let me in,' Steven said pleadingly through the metal door of his and Kajsa's quarters.

There was no reply.

'Kajsa, please…' he began, but another figure appeared in the turbolift.

'Just leave her alone,' Niklas's tone didn't leave any room for question. It wasn't a request, but a command.

'Just stay out of it,' Steven's eyes didn't move from the door.

'She is my sister.'

'So what?'

'I think I know her a bit better than you do,' Niklas raised his voice. 'Just leave.'

'I'm not going anywhere!' Steven snapped back. 'Sweetie, let me in,' he pleaded with the door again.

'She doesn't want to speak to you,' Niklas had closed the distance and put an arm on Steven's shoulder. The touch was far from friendly and the security officer immediately responded. He shifted his weight to the side and pushed Niklas away with his shoulder. Steven held back, he wasn't about to start a fight with his girlfriend's brother, but he wasn't going to let the guy man-handle him.

'It's nothing personal man,' Niklas backed off a bit. He and Steven were the tallest two officers, Niklas even being slightly taller, but he knew he didn't have any of the combat training that Steven did. He'd even learned from his sister that Steven was the Academy's champion in MMA-Mixed Martial Arts. 'She won't speak to anybody right now.'

'Look, I need to explain it to her,' Steven was still shouting, unable to match Niklas's calmer tone.

'From what I heard, you took Matt's side,' Niklas shrugged. 'There's nothing more to explain.' He realized that he came off a little harsh, and smiled apologetically.

'It's the right thing to do!' Steven's voice echoed through the corridor.

'I'm right there with you,' Niklas backed off a little further. 'But you've got to understand. She's afraid, always been…'

'I know she is, but…' Steven's shouting died down. The emotional wave had passed and he was beginning to realize that his shouting match probably wasn't helping much.

'And she needed you to support her.'

'But I want to…'

'I know you do buddy. But she can't see that right now.'

'What should I do?' Steven asked him. He wasn't used to being so helpless.

'Give her time,' Niklas put an arm on Steven's shoulder, and this time, the other cadet didn't react violently. 'She'll come around. She'll realize it's the right choice.'

'Will you speak to her?' Steven asked.

'Of course,' Niklas tried to smile. 'It's always been tough with her. I've even wondered why she chose a career in Starfleet, but then I see how brilliant she can be, and it all makes sense.' There was a proud look on Niklas's face, the same proud look that was present whenever he talked about his sister.

'I know what you mean,' Steven sighed and, with a final look at the locked door, made way for Alex's quarters.

'What's up?' he said solemnly as he entered.

'Alex was naked,' Matthew quipped. 'She has breasts.' He said it in a very casual and matter-of-fact-ly tone and this time Alex couldn't interrupt him in time.

'The universe must be going crazy,' Steven laughed.

* * *

Matthew waited in the captain's ready room as the nine other third years gathered on the bridge. He could hear talking, but not the argument he expected. He didn't know whether this was a good sign or not. Steven and Alex, at least, would have defended his decision, even if all of the others were against. He went through the speech he had practiced while Alex and Steven had quipped in the crew quarters, then stepped through the door.

'Captain on the bridge!' Alex called out and they all stood in attention. Even the usually carefree Moreena, and arrogant Jaroslav. Matthew immediately discarded his speech and replaced it with a single simple sentence.

'So, what'll it be?' Matthew said, looking each member of his crew in the eyes.

* * *

Matthew and the others filed into the cargo bay. The first years had all gathered there and nervous muttering spread through the crowd like a group of breeding Tribbles.

Matthew took a deep breath, moved to the center where everyone could see him and spoke up in a loud voice. When he finished talking, he almost expected to hear screaming and protests, but all he saw was thirty terrified faces… a much more discouraging sight.

Matthew almost thought he would call the whole thing off. Tell Starfleet they were heading home, but could he really do that?

'If you don't want to be a part of this, we won't try to stop you,' he told the terrified crowd. 'We'll drop you off at the nearest Federation friendly outpost. It'll mean doubling back, but we can't force you to risk your lives.'

Finally, one of them spoke up.

'Doesn't this ship normally have a crew complement of eighty?'

'That's right,' Steven spoke up. 'But we've proved we can handle it so far. Just look around you. A few days ago, this ship was deserted, half of the systems weren't functioning and it was dangerously close to a complete break-down.'

'There's forty of us altogether,' now it was Alex. 'We're not going to pretend that we can do without you, but if you decide to leave, it won't stop us going after them anyways.'

She turned back to Matthew.

'We're not going on any suicide mission! We'll go as far as we can, and try to find out who they were and why they took the crew of the Discovery. We can always come back, but we have to decide now. If we wait too long, their trail may be gone by the time we reach the station, and it'll all be for nothing.'

'Why can't we just leave it up to another ship?' these were all questions that Matthew expected, and the answers were simple, but none of them would convince the people before him to go.

'There are no other ships in this area,' Niklas said in his calm voice.

'They towed us beyond the borders of the Federation, it would take weeks for another ship to even get to where we're now,' Ryan wasn't one for public speaking, but Matt was happy that even the shy mechanic felt this was a cause worth fighting for.

Matthew waited for some sort of reaction, but then Jaroslav pushed himself from the wall against which he was leaning and shouted at the crowd. 'What the hell are you thinking about you cowards? People's lives are at steak. Why are you even asking them Matt? You're Captain, make the decision.'

'We need to be in this together,' Matthew insisted. 'You've all trusted me so far… trust me now.'

* * *

Matthew and the others arrived on the bridge. 'Call Starfleet,' Matthew said, his voice trembling. 'Redirect it to the Captain's mess, that section sustained the least damage.'

'Aye Captain.'

Matthew left the bridge from the back right hand side, opposite of the main turbolift, and sat down in the Captain's chair. There were several memorabilia from the former Captain's journeys here and, for a moment, Matthew felt he was intruding upon somebody else's privacy. He decided to get up and stood in front of the viewscreen.

It flicked on, and Matthew was staring into the faces of four Admirals of Starfleet Command.

* * *

'What's going on?' a figure Matthew recognized as Rear Admiral Savaar asked. 'Where is the captain of the Discovery?'

'They…' Matthew began, but another, much more familiar face pulled into frame and interrupted him.

'Mr. Meyers?' It was Admiral Nielsen, commander of Starfleet Academy. 'This is all starting to make sense.'

Matthew told them about everything that had happened since they set out from Starfleet academy. It took several hours, and the Admirals asked very specific questions about the aliens that attacked them. It seemed that they were sympathetic to the cadets' predicament, but when he finished, the only sentence that followed was a direct command.

'Return to Federation space at once!'

'Sir, I don't think you understand…' Matthew began, but immediately bit his lip.

'Don't I?' the Admiral wasn't angry, but neither was he forthcoming to anything else Matthew might want to say. He was risking his career right now, but he wasn't going to give up just yet.

'Sir, the crew is held hostage, we are the closest ship…'

'You are trying my patience boy,' the only other human Admiral besides Nielsen interrupted him. 'I've heard a lot about you, and although I don't doubt your skills, you are on undermanned damaged ship, full of cadets. You will return…'

'Admiral Nielsen,' Matthew tried desperately. 'I know you've had plans for me. That you were the one who recommended me to Captain Riker when he was looking for a new officer. You even offered me the position of executive officer aboard the Sabre-class frigate assigned to Starfleet Academy at the end of my second year at the Academy. I've always held back, give me that same chance now. I've seen this crew in action. I know we can do it.'

The other Admirals turned to Nielsen, but their complexions didn't change.

'Your intentions are honorable, Cadet Meyers, but we can't afford to lose another ship. The fleet is stretched far too thin already.'

Matthew revealed the last fact that he had been saving. If this didn't work, nothing would.

'They are heading for the center of the galaxy. A massive space station in the center of a trinary star system. Draxxis.'

The faces of the Admirals suddenly transformed.'

'How do you know about that?' Savaar asked suspiciously. 'The existence of that station has been classified since its discovery by the Archer probe.'

'It's where my father was going when he disappeared,' Matthew tried to stay calm, but couldn't stop his voice trembling at the mere mention of his father's name.

'We shall take some time to convene,' Savaar looked at the others and the screen flickered off.

* * *

When the screen flickered back on, all of the Admirals were looking very grave again, only Nielsen seemed to be sporting an almost invisible smile.

'We have decided to grant you a field commission of Commander. You will assess the strength of the foe and return to Federation space immediately. You will be on a strict non-interference policy. If you come across any trouble, you will run.'

Matt opened his mouth, but no words came out. For a moment he felt like a fish out of water.

'Yes, sir,' he finally managed.

'I am sure we do not have to remind you that you are heading for a very volatile region of space. It is important that you maintain good relations with any species you meet. We cannot afford to stir up any trouble, Starfleet isn't as it was before the Dominion War.'

'Yes, sir,' Matt nodded.

'I expect daily reports,' Savaar eyed Matthew suspiciously.

'Good luck commander.'

The Admiral's faces were replaced by the blue Starfleet badge. Matt was about to leave when a single face reappeared. It was Admiral Nielsen.

'Thank you, sir,' Matthew said sincerely.

'I'm not here to pat you on the back. I'm doing this as a favour to your father. He was a good friend of mine.'

'I thought he never was in Star… wait, does that mean he's still alive?' Matthew eyes widened.

'I don't know. But I'm giving you the chance to find out.'

'Thank you…'

'You're the best student I ever had, Matt, and I'm not the only person in Starfleet Academy that thinks so. Don't think for a moment that I'd let you do this if I didn't believe that you were capable of it.'

'They're a good crew, sir,' Matthew said proudly.

'I know they are,' Nielsen looked like he was picturing the faces of all the people Matthew mentioned. 'I have two more important things to tell you, Matt, listen carefully.'

Matthew nodded.

'We've been meaning to send the Enterprise in your direction in search for allies and to asses the threat from Draxxis. However, the growing unease around the Romulans since the Scimitar incident has meant showing off our flagship along the neutral zone in order to preserve peace. War with the Romulans could be devastating at the moment.'

'I understand,' Matthew was listening carefully. If they were contemplating sending the Enterprise, this region of space was clearly very important. This reinforced his belief that they'd have to be very careful. Not only about not endangering their own lives, but also the entire stability of the Alpha quadrant. The pirates in this area, or the aliens that attacked them simply couldn't be allowed to find out about the Federation's fragile state. Matthew wondered whether that was the reason why the crew of the Discovery was captured and not killed, and shivered at the thought of whether they could withstand whatever interrogation techniques these aliens might have for so long.

'The second thing might come as a slight shock,' Nielsen didn't whisper, but it was clear that he didn't want this news to be heard by any other bystanders. 'You have a Romulan spy on board.'

This time Matthew couldn't stop his jaw from dropping.

'Do you know?' he began.

'No… I just felt you should know.'

'Thank you again, sir.'

'Be careful Commander.'

'I will…'

* * *

When Matthew emerged from the ready room, the bridge was completely silent.

'Conn. Return to previous course. Ryan. T'Vral. I'll need you down in engineering. Maximum warp.'

Nobody said a word, they all just got to their stations. Cyanne and Moreena left the bridge together after the two engineers had gone down.

Once Alex received the confirmation from engineering, she executed Matthew's command. The stars on the viewscreen extended until they formed straight bright lines, and the Discovery warped toward Draxxis station.


End file.
